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Deforestation is the cutting down of a large scale of trees. Deforestation allows the land to be used for other profit-making enterprises; such as, buildings, commercial farming, and cattle ranching. Commercial farming is the production of rubber and palm oil, which is used for food purposes.
The rate of deforestation in Malaysia is increasing by the minute, it’s increasing faster than any other tropical country. Between 2000 and 2013, Malaysia’s total forest loss was an area larger than Denmark!
Logging is the activity or business of cutting down and preparing the timber. Malaysia became the world’s largest exporter of tropical wood in the 1980s. Clear felling is the act in which tress are chopped down in an area; this then led to the total destruction of forest habitats.
Logging requires road construction to bring in machinery and take away the timber. As a result, more trees need to be cut down, in order to build the roads. Roads are constructed to provide access to mining areas, new settlements and energy projects.
Mining, mainly tin and smelting, is common in Malaysia. The rainforests have to be cleared for mining and road construction. This means that more trees have to be cut down and removed; again increasing the deforestation problem. Drilling for oil and gas has recently started in Borneo.
Transmigration is the act in which poor urban people were encouraged by the government to move to the countryside away from the rapidly growing cities.
Between 1956 and the 1980s, about 15000 hectares of rainforest was felled for the settlers: many of them, hence, set up plantations.
During the 1970s, large areas of land were converted to palm oil plantations. The reason for this is because plantation owners receive 10-year tax incentives, so increasing amounts of land have been converted to plantations.
Tribal people living in the rainforest practise subsistence farming. Traditionally, local communities would hunt and gather food from the forest and grow some food crops in cleared pockets of forests. This type of farming is small scale and is quite sustainable. One method of clearing land includes: slash and burn. Slash and burn consists of the use of fire to clear the land. The burning produces valuable nutrients that help plants to grow. This causes the fire to grow out of control, which as a result, destroys large areas of the forest.