A new report by environmental organizations has found that policies introduced by government entities may be destroying forests in Southeast Asia.
What's happening?
Mongabay summarized a report published in October 2024 by Earth Insight, Auriga Nusantara, Forest Watch Indonesia, Solutions for Our Climate (SFOC), Trend Asia, and Mighty Earth. It found that subsidies for forest biomass energy in Japan and South Korea are directly contributing to deforestation in the Indonesian region.
Here, a rapidly growing woody biomass industry is clearing rainforests to make wood pellets, which are then burned for electricity.
It found that South Korea received around 61% of Indonesian wood pellet exports between 2021 and 2023, while Japan received about 38% over the same period (with a small percentage going to other nations).
Indonesian wood biomass export volumes also grew from just over 100 metric tons (over 220,000 pounds) annually to more than 1,000 times that between 2021 and 2023.
Although Indonesia has also begun burning wood pellets alongside coal in a process known as cofiring to reduce planet-warming gas pollution, the science behind the process is shaky at best and thought to exacerbate pollution issues, as Mongabay reported.
Why is deforestation concerning?
The deforestation caused by this process contributes to more widespread air pollution as the world loses its natural carbon sinks.
As the South Korean government requires energy producers to increase their ratio of renewable energy year by year gradually, imported biomass is heavily subsidized by the country and has been for the last decade, as SFOC detailed.
Hansae Song, SFOC's program lead for forests and land use, also warned that forest biomass projects are occurring in natural forests rather than specialized tree plantations.
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Definitely 👍 "That's the red line that we should never cross," Song told Mongabay.
What's being done about deforestation?
In October 2024, Moon Dae-Lim, a lawmaker with the opposition Democratic Party in South Korea's National Assembly, presented on South Korean wood pellet imports and how they are driving rainforest destruction and called for a moratorium to investigate the issue in November.
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