Bandar Seri Begawan - Southeast Asia's average deforestation rate is likely to drop by 2.3 million hectare a year from 2000, an environmental activist said yesterday.

And environmental group Greenpeace is urging governments to help bring the rate down to zero level by 2020, said Greenpeace Southeast Asia Forest campaigner Bustar Maitar.

"The deforestation rate has actually dropped because there has been no episode of the El Nino (the past few years). It was not due anti-deforestation policies introduced by countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia," Bustar told The Brunei Times from Indonesia's Riau Province.

Before year 2000, the very intense droughts associated with the El Nino weather phenomenon in 1997 caused massive forest fires in the region. In Indonesia alone, he added, the deforestation rate reached 2.8 million hectares triggered by El Nino in 1997.

Another reason for the drop in the region's deforestation rate was the absence of forest cover in certain parts of the region. This compelled exploitation projects such as in Thailand and the Philippines to wind up.

Though the average deforestation rate has decreased in the region, he said he is concerned over the expansion of palm oil production, which can fuel deforestation. Nowadays, demand for palm oil is on the rise because it is used not only for food production but also for biofuel production, he added.

Greenpeace is calling on all governments to end deforestation globally by 2020 as a key part of the United Nations climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December.

"We call on the countries with rich forest resources to immediately reduce the carbon emission by lowering deforestation. And if we want to combat current climate change in the world, it means that we must end deforestation."

Based on the State of the World's Forests 2009. Southeast Asian countries have a total forest area of 203,887,000 hectare in 2005.-- Courtesy of The Brunei Times

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