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by Matthew McDermott, Brooklyn, NY on 10.10.08 photo: Neil Franklin We may be squandering our children’s natural inheritance, losing up to $5 trillion a year in natural capital, by chopping down the world’s forests, but the Indonesian government has finally done something to stop the destruction. Announced yesterday at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Barcelona, Indonesian politicians have signed onto to a plan which it is hoped with protect the remaining forests and critical ecosystems on the island of Sumatra: 48% of Sumatra Deforested Since 1985 Since the 1980s Sumatra has lost about half of its forest cover to logging and agriculture. As the WWF points out, many of these forests sit on top of some of the deepest peat soils in the world. So when the trees are removed, not only is animal habitat lost and the carbon... [read full story]
