And once these fires burn, the process continues. Here, trees, perhaps 100 years old, are logged, then floated south on the Mahakam River and made into plywood for export. Flying over the area, it is difficult to find patches of forest that are not colored gray-brown. The cause of the fires is a matter of debate. While everyone agrees that the majority of the fires were deliberately set, there is much finger pointing.
Most environmentalists blame timber and mining companies for uncontrolled burning to clear the land.
Others blame poor farmers who had hoped to plant a few crops under the jungle canopy in an attempt to recoup their losses after a year of failed crops. Certainly fire is the cheapest, easiest way to clear land for large corporations as well as individual farmers, says Schindler. Poor people use fire to clear land to plant crops so they can eat, certainly the traditional people, the Dayak tribes, have been using slash and burn methods for thousands of years. They follow the logging roads into the forest, clear some land, but the forest is not theirs. Many times they are illegal squatters.