La région indonésienne de Sumatra est l’un des dernièrs abris pour les populations de tigres, en Indonésie. Et comme l’assènent les ONG, c’est aussi un territoire très prisés des planteurs de palmier à huile. A force de placer des caméras dans la jungle, le WWF a fini par constater la proximité des deux populations, tigres et bulldozers. En mai dernier, une caméra a surpris un tigre en balade nocturne, dans une forêt classée « protégée » depuis 1994. Quelques jours plus tard —au soleil cette fois— la caméra automatique a filmé un bulldozer en pleine action. Et le lendemain, un tigre venu constater les dégâts. Pas sûr que l’animal apprécie cette nouvelle promiscuité…
2010-10-19
C’est plutot pour le commerce de bois tropicaux et de papier que les forêts sont défrichés, les cultures de palmiers sont plutot des excuses…
http://www.globalforestwatch.org/common/indonesia/sof.indonesia.english.low.pdf
Second, establishing plantations in forest land is doubly attractive because, having acquired a landclearing
licence (IPK), a company can clear-cut the area and sell the timber to wood-processing indusvtries. This arrangement may represent a windfall profit, over and above the profits expected from future palm oil harvests. In many instances, plantation owners are also concession operators, so the “sale” of such cleared wood represents a simple transfer from one company to another within the same group, at rock bottom prices. As described in Section 3.2, timber from forest clearance provided approximately 30 percent of (legal) wood in the second half of the 1990s, and it has become an indispensable source of supply, especially to the pulp industry. Companies therefore are vigorously pursuing applications for the release of forest land for conversion, even where the forest has previously been designated as production, protection, or even conservation forest. (See Box 3.5.) It appears that some companies have no intention of establishing plantations but instead pursue conversion licenses solely for the timber profits that can be
realized through forest clearance. In West Kalimantan, for example, the head of the Plantation Service threatened to revoke the licenses of 21 companies and warned 29 others because of their failure to establish plantations as agreed (Sunderlin, 1999:564).