With the Indonesian population growing at a very fast rate, forests are being converted and replaced by farms and commercial activities. There is a need to make way for agricultural land and crops (an example, called the Mega Rice Project was unsuccessful), building of hydroelectric dams and mining activities in Borneo and Sumatra. This is to create jobs for the people so that they are able to earn a living.
Particularly, the Mega Rice Project was a disaster. This project was initiated in 1996 with the goal of converting 1 million hectares of unproductive and sparsely populated peat swamp forest into rice paddies to alleviate Indonesia’s growing food shortage. The government invested a lot of money into construction of the irrigation canals and removal of the tress. Around 5000 orang-utans and other wildlife were killed in this process (Rieley, 2001). However, the project failed and was eventually abandoned after causing damage to the environment. Not only did the Mega Rice Project destroyed large amounts of forest land, the irrigation system and roads which were meant to facilitate the project were also abandoned. This was an opportunity to allow loggers access into the forest, which was once highly inaccessible.
Deforestation mainly came in the form of slash and burn techniques where the trees are first chopped down followed by the burning of the forests. Not only were the habitats of the orang-utans destroyed, many orang-utans were injured or killed during the forest fires because they were unable to escape or are trapped in the forest canopy.
Furthermore, forests fires cause an increase of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, which contributes to global warming, disrupted water cycles because trees no longer evaporate groundwater which in turn cause a drier climate and also increase in soil erosion as there are no more tree roots to hold the soil in place. Political tension is also evident in the region when the haze hit countries such as Singapore. As a result of the haze affecting Singapore’s air, Indonesia was being blamed for failing to control the fires. In turn, Indonesia accused Malaysia of starting the fires.