Palm oil plantations and sale of timber are worth enough
to
cause the destruction of the rainforest on the island of
Borneo. That's the thrust of this new exploration by
German
writer Lukas Straumann, called MONEY LOGGING. Not alone
does he show that a small number of persons profit
immensely, but the majority of the indigenous people are
forced off the land that sustains them.
A whistleblower lets us in on the corruption, greed and
disrespect behind the Malaysian groups which have moved in
to profit hugely from the environmental and humanitarian
calamity. Through the granting of timber concessions and
export licenses, a ruling family have managed to become
billionaires, with the connivance, we are told, of world
banking groups which facilitated exploitation on the
grounds that it should boost the island's economy. The
state of Sarawak is the focus of the story.
Rainforests are incredibly diverse habitats and Borneo is
home to many species found nowhere else. However oil palm,
a tree whose berries produce edible oil, is extremely
productive, so jungle has been cleared, with slow-growing
hard timber sold to the highest bidder, and vast oil palm
plantations created. These are comparatively sterile,
monocrops which do not provide homes for wildlife. As the
major trees used to hold the soil together, there have
been
earthslides, erosion and the prospect of continued damage
as the earth washes out from the plantations.
I knew that such processes were under way and still I
found
this book hard reading because the level of corruption and
theft that comes across is painful when linked with
rainforest destruction and a humanitarian nightmare. I
would add that Borneo is an island without volcanoes, so
the annual monsoon, in which rain falls steadily for
months, removes soil material, washing it into the sea
without mineral replacements. This land is productive
only
with difficulty by specialised trees, venomous creatures
and poisonous plants, including carnivorous plants and the
biggest leech in the world. You and I would not be able to
live in this jungle, so calling it an Eden seems to miss
the mark. However, that's no justification for burning the
forests which absorb carbon dioxide and shunting off the
people.
Read hard-hitting MONEY LOGGING by Lukas Straumann
and decide if you want to buy products with palm oil on
the
label.
Money Logging investigates what Gordon Brown has called
probably the biggest environmental crime of our times the
massive destruction of the Borneo rainforest by Malaysian
loggers. Historian and campaigner Lukas Straumann goes in
search not only of the lost forests and the people who
used to call them home, but also the network of criminals
who have earned billions through illegal timber sales and
corruption. Straumann singles out Abdul Taib Mahmud,
current governor of the Malay¬sian state of Sarawak, as
the kingpin of this Asian timber mafia. Taib s family with
the complicity of global financial institutions have
profited to the tune of 15 billion US dollars. Money
Logging is a story of a people who have lost their ancient
paradise to a wasteland of oil palm plantations,
pollution, and corruption and how they hope to take it
back. Translated from German.
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