Indonesia is rapidly losing its lowland forests to logging, much of itillegal. At present, logging is claiming the forests at a rate of nearlytwo million hectares (slightly less than 5 million acres: roughly the samearea as the state of Massachusetts) each year. At this rate, the islandof Sumatra will have no more lowland forests by 2005, a fate alreadybefallen the island of Sulawesi. Indonesia’s lowland forests are hometo a wide variety of wildlife and are considered among the richestecosystems in the world. Among the unique life forms in these forests arethe Orangutan and the Sumatra Tiger. Sixteen percent of the entire world’sbird species, eleven percent of its plants, and ten percent of all mammalson Earth call these forests home. Many are found nowhere else.
In the two Landsat scenes shown above, the pattern of deforestation canbe clearly discerned. Deep green in these images shows lush vegetation inthe forest cover. In both scenes, deep and pale red shows areas where thereis little or no vegetation, often bare ground from where forest has beencompletely stripped. The latter Landsat scene from 2001 not only showsextensive clear cut areas, but also new logging roads built into theremaining forest to facilitate future cutting. This lowland forestregion is located on Indonesia’s largest island, Sumatra, roughly 100 kmsouthwest of the provincial capital of Jambi.
The first image was acquired by Landsat 5’s Thematic Mapper (TM) sensor onJune 22, 1992, the second byLandsat 7’s EnhancedThematic Mapper plus (ETM+) sensor on January 14, 2001. Both are false-colorcomposite images madeusing shortwave infrared, infrared, and green wavelengths. The area shownabove is roughly 30 km x 22 km (19 miles x 14 miles). The large versionsof these images show the same general area covering 60 km x 60 km.
References & Resources
Images provided by the Tropical Rain Forest Information Center (TRFIC) through the Basic Science and Remote Sensing Initiative (BSRSI) based at Michigan State University, and the Landsat 7 Project Science Office at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
