Previous image, pages 22–23: Reaching out to a visitor, this male orangutan, like hundreds of other orphans, is kept at the Nyaru Menteng rehabilitation center in Kalimantan, Indonesia, a project funded and managed by the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOS). The loss of dipterocarp trees in this region has led to significant reductions in the populations of many species like orangutans that are dependent on forests.
Previous images, pages 24–25: More than 75 percent of the lowland rain forests on Borneo have been wiped out in recent decades, as happened here in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. Many were replaced by large monoculture plantations to produce palm oil. As the old forests have been
harvested, the remaining ones have become increasingly dry, thus heightening the risk of fire. The recurring climatic and hydrological phenomenon of El Niño has caused fires in deforested areas of the Kalimantan province of Indonesian Borneo, which, in turn, has led to an estimated 700 million tons of carbon dioxide being emitted into the atmosphere. Recent scientific studies show that deforestation and related fires account for at least 20 percent of human-induced carbon dioxide emissions worldwide.
The astonishing ecological and genetic variation that we find in the Iguazu Mountains on the border between Brazil and Argentina, is among the richest on Earth. Estimates show that much of the water flowing over Iguazu Falls comes from exhalations of the standing rainforest. When we devastate our forests, we also
lose a key source of rainfall and thus help to gradually dry up the rivers.