Fire and Rain: Living Downstream Reports from Borneo

The peat swamp forests of Borneo are the site of a failed
agricultural experiment. Planners believed that rice should
grow in the swamps, but it couldn't. Even today, experiments
with growing oil palms and other trees are changing the
forests, with little positive to show for these efforts.


As indigenous people lost their livelihood, carbon poured into
the atmosphere from uncontrolled fires. 


Daniel Grossman reports:


Learn more about peat fires in Indonesia. 


Read an article by The New York Times on the same region of
Indonesia. 


(Image: Smog and smoke over Borneo and Indonesia, 1997. Credit:
NASA)


 



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