The island has a skin of topsoil only 50 cm thick sitting on limestone. It takes 100 years for limestone areas to add one cm to the topsoil, making it nearly impossible to restore the land after the forests are gone. The study team's leader, Abdulla Abbas Idjuddin of the Java- based Agroclimate and Land Research Centre, says logging will gradually reduce Yamdena to a lump of limestone, which will eventually be washed down to the sea. Idjuddin added that several islands in the Moluccas have already been submerged because of erosion of denuded topsoil. The Forestry Department in Jakarta has agreed to form its own study team that will look further into the issue.
Environmentalists are outraged.
They point to Tapak Kuda island in northern Sumatra which is sinking because its mangroves have been cut. Tapak Kuda residents have been asked to evacuate. Near Yamdena is the island of Kei which was logged heavily by a Dutch company in the late 19th century. Today, Kei has almost no topsoil left and is covered with jagged rocks. People there grow cassava with difficulty.