The Environmental Status Report of the Heart of Borneo 2014 is the second edition of the ecological health of the HoB conducted by WWF.
The report focused on the use of satellite imagery to monitor changes in different forest types inside and outside the HoB boundary.
The report noted that although the HoB is faring better than the island of Borneo as a whole, 10% or 2 million hectares of the HoB forests have still disappeared since the declaration was signed in 2007.
The key reason for forest loss is the conversion of natural forest concessions to non-forest uses such as plantations.
Borneo is a huge contributor to the world oil palm industry and Indonesia’s Kalimantan and Sarawak in this instance stands guilty of legal and illegal logging.
Yesterday the UK Guardian daily reported that Asian logging companies had made billions from destroying their rainforests and had used a labyrinth of secret shell companies based in the British Virgin islands.
The mega-NGO Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) is famous for its timidity when it comes to saying anything challenging towards governments or big business.
It prefers to ‘engage’ with these powerful bodies, rather than criticise them when they do something wrong and this approach has stood WWF in very good stead as an organisation. It basks in high regard and enjoys endless corporate and public donations.
However, their approach has done very little towards achieving the objectives of WWF’s major projects and the project to save the Heart of Borneo is a prime example. As WWF has now just admitted in its own report, this project is facing total failure because of the lack of commitment by the governing bodies in Borneo to stop lining their pockets with timber kickbacks.
This failure has not stopped WWF from raising a fortune from well-meaning people across the globe over recent years, by promoting itself as a major saviour of the Orang Utan, which is being driven from its habitat by relentless and corrupt logging in the Heart of Borneo region.
Shame all round.
WWF should stop ‘engaging’; it should stop pretending it is saving species and raising money off the back of this false claim and it should start advocating for measures to be taken against those individuals who are corruptly making millions out of ruining the Heart of Borneo!