Development for the Greater Good - at Whose Expense?

It's a familiar tale here in Malaysia: a sprawling, thriving rainforest, cleared for development or plantations. Despite pledges to protect our intact forests made on the international stage, back home, we still keep hearing of more forests being degazetted or earmarked for development. In this case, the site in question used to be part of a forest reserve in the Chini-Bera forest complex, home to Orang Asli communities, and a wide array of wildlife too, cleared and developed for a new palm oil plantation. But now, as environmental journalist Law Yao Hua puts it - all that remains are silty logging roads, winding across the shrubby landscape. With many questions surrounding this new palm oil plantation being raised - including the likelihood it would fail Malaysia’s mandatory sustainability certification for oil palm - who is this project set to benefit, really? We speak to Yao Hua about this three-part story that he produced and published on Macaranga, done in collaboration with the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network.

Image Credit: Macaranga