Malaysia Rainforest - living world

• Cause- Subsistence and commercial farming

  Indigenous tribes "slash" and "burn" to clear areas to grow food but can destroy large areas if out of control
• Cause- mining

  Mining or smelting of tin and drying oil or gas

  Rainforest cleared to make way for mines and roads

  Mining leads to poisonous by products polluting land and rivers
• Cause- logging

  1980s- Malaysia was the world's largest exporter of tropical trees

  Felling was common leading to total destruction of habitats
• Cause- energy

  $2 billion Bakun Dam in Sarawak finished in August 2011 but was built to provide HEP for industry

  Impacts include:

  Flooding of 700km² land

  9000 indigenous people were forced to relocate
• Cause: resettlement

  Historically, poor urban dwellers in Malaysia were encouraged to move into the countryside to relieve pressure on the cities; a policy known as transmigration
• Cause - road building

  Building roads to access logging, oil, and mining sites in the rainforest leads to illegal logging and mining
• Impacts - economic

  Jobs from mining, farming and energy, companies pay tax which improved infrastructure

  Carbon sink increased climate change, loss of medicinal plants

  Tourism decreases
• Impacts - soil erosion

  No roots binding the soil means wind and rain remove through soil erosion and leaching
• Impacts - climate change

  Cutting down trees means that no carbon store and burning trees releases CO2

  Deforestation reduces moisture and gives a drier climate
• Location:

  South East Asia