Name: Tran Thu Ngan Class:2S

Effects of deforestation in Indonesia

Student’s Name: Tran Thu Ngan

Student ID: 13704880

Word Count: 836 words.

Teacher’s Name: Nishita Ranjan

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Name: Tran Thu Ngan Class:2S

Forests make up 31% of the land area on earth and it is regarded as the lungs

of the planet because it provides oxygen for all organisms in the world to inhale fresh

air and absorb carbon dioxide which they breathe out. However, Earth Policy Institute

reports that the planet loses approximately 16 million hectares of forests each year,

which is roughly the total size of the state of Michigan [CITATION Ada \l 1066 ].

Among all of the countries in the world, Indonesia is one of the countries with the

largest number of tropical forests because over 46% of the land area is forested land,

but forest destruction is commonplace across this nation[CITATION Sin18 \l 1066 ].

The three major effects which deforestation has caused for this country, are air

pollution, health problems, environmental damage

The first negative impact of forest destruction is air pollution. The reason is

the enterprises producing palm oil usually use the slash-and-burn method for the trees

in the forests to clear patches of land for their plantations. When burning the trees in

the forests with peat, the fire is extremely challenging to control or stop. Therefore,

the smoke fills the air, which contains a shocking amount of dangerous chemicals

such as carbon monoxide, ammonia, and cyanide. As a result, the air is polluted. In

fact, the Global Fire Emissions Database reports that in 2015, fires in Indonesia which

are caused by forest burning generated about 600m tonnes of greenhouse gases, which

is approximately equivalent to Germany’s entire annual output [CITATION Har16 \l

1066 ]. This is a reason why deforestation causes air pollution.

Apart from that, deforestation leads to health issues which is the second

impact on Indonesia. More seriously, this situation also impacts on neighboring

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Name: Tran Thu Ngan Class:2S

countries such as Singapore and Malaysia[ CITATION Aba171 \l 1066 ]. The process

of burning forests in preparation of palm plantations, which creates a huge amount of

haze which contains a bulk of chemical poisons. As a result, humans who inhale toxic

gases on a daily basis encountered a lot of serious medical problems because the

emissions from burning peatlands contain potent carcinogens and over 90 different

highly toxic gases [CITATION Bel17 \l 1066 ]. Some of them include formaldehyde,

acrolein, benzene, carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide which cause the serious

medical problem for humans, such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,

blood poisoning, heart and lung disease. As an illustration, a study by Harvard and

Columbia universities discovered that the haze may have triggered the premature

death of more than 100,000 peoples in South-east Asia in 2015 and the country with

the highest death toll in Indonesia, at 91,000 victims[ CITATION Aba171 \l 1066 ].

Therefore, deforestation causes health problems.

The last effect of the destruction of forest is the local environment, namely

heavy erosion and the destruction of natural habitat of animals. Firstly, erosion

damage is the result of commercial agriculture by the big palm oil firms and

subsistence farming by local people. Due to the fact that people need a large space to

graze cattle or grow crops, they cut down the trees and burn them. However, after two

or three years, the land can no longer be used so that the farmers move to another

piece of land. It takes a long time for a piece of land to recover and people burn the

land for a long term so it will be difficult to recover and this situation leads to heavy

erosion damage. Secondly, deforestation also causes natural habitat of animals.

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Name: Tran Thu Ngan Class:2S

Indonesia’s rainforests which make up the third largest area of rainforests in the

world, which is home to a huge number of animal species in the world. This situation

leads the world in the figure of threatened mammals species, which is approximately a

third of all of its native mammals in the world[ CITATION Kip17 \l 1066 ]. Almost

all animals in Indonesia are on the brink of extinction especially rare ones such as the

Sumatran tiger, the Orangutan, Sumatran elephants because burning forests to serve

for planting palm oil trees lead to not only natural habitat destruction but also a fall in

the food supply of animals [CITATION Dav3 \l 1066 ]. This situation makes for the

inability for the animals to survive nearly in the forests because they are lack habitats,

foods, and air to breathe every day.

With all the serious implications above, there are some measures come from not only

the government of Indonesia but also the United Nations program Reducing

Emissions from Deforestation, which to tackle deforestation [ CITATION Dav102 \l

1066 ]. In particular, CNN news reports that Norway has pledged to give Indonesia up

to one billion dollars if it can prove a reduction in its emissions and preventing

deforestation, and in January 2011 Indonesia started a two-year ban on any new

cutting of forests.

To conclude, it is irrefutable that deforestation exerts an adverse impact on all

aspects of Indonesia. Among them, air pollution, human health issues and local

environmental damage, such as heavy erosion and the extinction of animal species are

recorded as the worst impacts which are caused by the destruction of forest.

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Name: Tran Thu Ngan Class:2S

Hopefully, in the future, the government will definitely tackle the deforestation to

improve the life of the citizens in Indonesia.

References

Aba , E., & Maria , B. S. (2017, February 4). 100,000 may have died but there is still

no justice over Indonesian air pollution. Retrieved from theguardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-

network/2017/feb/04/indonesian-air-pollution-death-justice

Adams, E. E. (2012, AUGUST 31). Forest Cover. Retrieved from Earth Policy

Institute : http://www.earth-policy.org/indicators/C56

Bell, L. (2017, November 6). How unhealthy is the haze from Indonesia’s annual

peat fires? Retrieved from Eco-business: https://www.eco-

business.com/news/how-unhealthy-is-the-haze-from-indonesias-annual-peat-

fires/

Davies, C. (2010, November 27). Indonesia aims to halt deforestation. Retrieved from

CNN:

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/11/22/indonesia.halt.deforestatio

n/index.html

Davies, L. (2011, November 27). Fresh wave of killings by hunters takes Indonesian

orangutan to the brink of extinction. Retrieved from The Guardian:

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Name: Tran Thu Ngan Class:2S

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/nov/27/orangutan-indonesia-

endangered-species

Harris , J. (2016, October 10). Toxic smog over South East Asia killed over 100,000 in

2015. Retrieved from World Socialist Web Site:

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/10/10/toxi-o10.html

Kiprop, J. (2017, July 14). 5 Countries With The Largest Rainforest Coverage.

Retrieved from worldatlas: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/5-countries-

with-the-largest-rainforest-area.html

Utsav, S. (2018, June 6). Top 10 Countries With Largest Forest Area. Retrieved from

Earth&World: https://earthnworld.com/top-10-countries-with-largest-forest-

area/

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