Rampant deforestation in Malaysia is nothing new to us, but the authorities had not acknowledged the impacts of it and continued to allow the logging activity.
However, the repercussions of deforestation in Malaysia have been fully displayed lately with severe floods and sightings of dangerous wild animals in the town. Nonetheless, deforestation done whether through legal or illegal logging have gravely affected the natural ecosystem of our flora and fauna.
While deforestation was in the limelight recently, a Reddit user had shared a data-based motion graphic video, showing how rampant Malaysia’s forest loss has been just over 2 decades!
Based on the deforestation data obtained from 2000 to 2020 in Malaysia and certain parts of Indonesia, the user u/crossground created a motion graphic visualising just how ubiquitous forest loss have been in our country and in the nearby Indonesian regions.
The results were then shared in the r/dataisbeautiful subreddit, where you can see the yearly demise of our forests via the motion graphic video here:
The user u/crossground, who previously created a viral post on the visualisation of the rampant deforestation in the Amazon in South America, said that the tool used has been expanded to work with multiple large datasets.
With this, his latest video’s visualisation covers a large part of Southeast Asia that is particularly affected by extensive logging and palm oil plantations.
In the motion graphic, landmass is depicted in grey, forest cover is green, peatland cover is lim-green and forest loss is yellow. In addition, red rectangles represent the extents of the 3 zoomed-in regions of Indonesia’s Riau and Kalimantan as well as Malaysia’s Sarawak.
Meanwhile, in Sarawak, u/crossground explained that rainforests in the state have been decimated due to logging and palm oil industries. Whether legal or illegal deforestation, it has affected the life of indigenous tribes, especially the Penan, whose livelihood is heavily dependant on forest produce.
What do you think about this after watching the video? Share your thoughts!
