Though the human impacts and ensuing outcomes of deforestation differ in each of the four countries that we have studied so far, the main methods to improve such areas are more or less the same. In this section, we outline a remedy for deforestation that could be applied to all four countries (and even tropical forests in other parts of the world), and then tackle country-specific problems that only occur in Southeast Asia.
Reforestation: intuitively replantation is one of the best remedy for deforestation. In tropical forest, reforestation means planting tropical hardwood trees for harvests and in areas of deforestation. From the environmental prospect, reforestation can slow down the loss of tropical rainforest, rebuild natural habitats and alleviate global warming. Reforestation also helps in economic aspects. As the demand for hardwood trees increases and the availability of tropical hardwood trees decreases due to the loss of tropical rainforest, there would be a large shortage of hardwood trees in the area and the prices of hardwood trees are expected to soar66. With reforestation, not only the ecosystem is improved, but also the local economic situation is boosted.
Rubber Tapping: Rubber tapping is “the process by which the latex is collected from a rubber tree67.” Rubber tapping is not destructive to tropical rainforest as it does not require trees to be cut down for latex to be extracted and therefore rubber tapping is a more sustainable way of exploiting the tropical rainforest68. Rubber tapping is a great economic alternative, because unlike agricultural exploitation or timber replantation, rubber tapping is apparently more sustainable as there is essentially no tree loss. Though the short term gain of timber extraction and agriculture could be higher, in the long run rubber tapping is superior as the economic gain can recur rather than diminish as overtime.
Promote Ecotourism: Ecotourism is a recreational travel to observe and experience ecosystems69. It is considered as one of the best long-term approaches to sustain some tropical economies70. With the joint effort of governmental, private, environmental, and indigenous groups, ecotourism can be seen as contributing to conservation71. More importantly, planners should ensure that ecotourism minimize the ecological influence and maximize the benefits for local people, which means the economic profit should not result in increased deforestation72. Ecotourism has significant advantages over other ways of economically exploiting forests, as trees can be conserved for aesthetic appeal, and species could be protected to appeal to visitors. Compared with Rubber tapping, Ecotourism does not even disturbs the original composition of trees in tropical rainforests.
Reducing the use of Palm-Oil: It is known that almost half of U.S packaged products are made with Palm-Oil produced from rainforests in Southeast Asia. The Palm-Oil plantation is the one of the main reason for deforestation73. On the part of US customer, they should push companies only to use responsible palm oil, as deforestation in Southeast Asia could affect humankind globally.
However, though the above three methods can be widely applied to most tropical forests to help mitigate deforestation, some unique issues in Southeast Asia countries require additional remedies. Below, we once again focus on each of the four countries of our focus, and analyze what can be done to improve each area based on the problems we identified previously:
Indonesia: since logging is one of the biggest problems in Indonesia, replantation efforts should be taken to recover the tropical forests partially. In terms of shifting cultivation, the government could ban the practice clearing forests. More importantly, since Indonesian government currently allows logging in national parks and forest reserves, this practice should be stopped as soon as possible to reduce further damage.
Malaysia: Other than reforestation, Malaysia could improve its forest in many other ways. One such method could be controlled burning in the forests, as this technique could avoid the occurrence of a huge, uncontrollable fire. Additionally, since Malaysia is known to have scarce forest reserve areas and national parks, the government could possibly designate more areas as forest reserves and national parks to protect tropical forests.
Philippines: As we discussed previously, illegal logging was the main problem haunting the tropical forests on Philippines, and the government’s banning exportation of logs have had dramatically positive outcomes. As such, we would expect Philippines to keep up with such policies and increase replantation efforts. In addition, since dam projects also play a part in Philippines’ forest loss, the country could switch to other ways of electricity generation to avoid further construction of dams.
Thailand: since population growth and tribal problems are unique issues of Thailand, the government should bump up efforts of family planning and cooperating with tribal groups. More importantly, since most of Thailand’s forest is already wiped out, substantial replantation seems necessary in order to restore Thailand’s tropical forests.
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