Borneo, fires, palm oil. Nearly 1 million hectares of forests burning in 2019, as many cases of acute respiratory crisis in the summer alone. CNN report. (1) #Buycott!
Borneo in flames, 2019. The apocalypse
The apocalypse-which we have already written about, in 2017-is continuing. Not only in Indonesia, as seen in the Greenpeace report
Burning Down The House
. But also in Borneo, the third largest island on the planet split between Malaysia (Sabah and Sarawak), the tiny state of Brunei and Indonesia itself ( Kalimantan province).
857,800 hectares of forests (an area larger than the entire Umbria region) were devoured by flames between January and November 2019. In just three months, between August and October, fires released 626 million tons of CO2, more than Australia’s entire emissions in one year (European Commission data). And the mission of the 9,000 young people engaged in fighting the fires is impossible, as they are ignited in the jungle, days’ walk from the waterways.
Orangutan and biodiversity in ashes
The orangutan is also called, in Indonesia, ‘the forest man.’ It is in fact the closest being to humans, with whom it shares 97 percent of its DNA. His intelligence is developed, far beyond that of the dogs and cats we are used to living with. He is predisposed to socialize and yet is naive to the point of not understanding the fratricidal attitudes of some men and becoming an easy victim of them. At gunfire, when not at the stake.
Borneo’s orangutans are now endangered. (2) Their community-currently estimated at about 50,000 (equal to the number of inhabitants of Mantua)-has halved in less than four decades precisely because of deforestation. The oldest forest on the planet still covers about 240,000 km2, just under a third of the island. And at the current rate of deforestation it could disappear in a couple of decades, with its 15,000 plants, 420 types of birds and 222 mammals, many of them unique. Plus pygmy elephants, clouded leopards, sun bears, mouse deer, flying fox bats, pangolins. Kaputt.
Asphyxia
‘It was just like science fiction , everything was orange. And it was dark, at 12 p.m., it felt like 5 p.m. People were arriving, panicking.’ (Dr. Kevin Sutrapura, Palangkaraya Hospital, Kalimantan)
920,000 people were treated in summer 2019 for acute respiratory problems caused by the fires (according to the Indonesian disaster agency). The fumes from Borneo reached Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital, a thousand kilometers away. And the fires alone that precede deforestation-not including the impact of agrotoxics abused on oil palm plantations-expose 264 million people to serious health risks.
‘We decided to open an oxygen chamber, where people could start using oxygen, so that we could select patients for another type of advanced medical care.’
(Dr. Kevin Sutrapura, Kalimantan).
Outlaw palm, ineffective penalties. Buycott!
81 percent of oil palm plantations in Indonesia are outlawed, due to encroachment into protected areas and failure to meet national sustainability standards. This was revealed in the audit report submitted on 8/23/19 by Maritime Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan. (3) 9 convictions, US$ 250 million in administrative fines, three licenses revoked since 2015. But nothing has changed; the palmocrats continue to devour forests.
‘Allthe companies brought to court have suffered conviction verdicts and yet they do not even pay penalties to the government. Thus, court proceedings are not decisive, nor do they produce any deterrent effect. Operators therefore continue to burn and drain peatlands.‘ (Ratri Kusumohartono, Greenpeace Indonesia)
#Buycott! Palm oil, GMO soy, and American meats. We stop the demand for any product that contains these bloody ingredients, out of even our reservoirs. The petition, which we urge everyone to sign and disseminate, at https://www.egalite.org/buycott-petizione/
Dario Dongo and Giulia Caddeo
Notes
(1) Borneo is Burning, How the world’s demand for palm oil is driving deforestation in Indonesia, Rebecca Wright, Ivan Watson, Tom Booth and Masrur Jamaluddin, CNN, ch.2, Orangutans, https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2019/11/asia/borneo-climate-bomb-intl-hnk/index.html#chapter2
(2) V. IUCN, Red List of Threatened Species, https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/17975/123809220
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
Graduated in law, master in Food, Law & Finance. You have explored the theme of green procurement and urban food policies in the International Cooperation and Peace sector of the City of Turin.
