Friday, July 27, 2007

Rain in July

All very weird, a rain shower this morning. Normally, here in east Bali, we don't get so much as a drop of moisture from April through October. But this year, we've had rather frequent showers during JULY!

Sulawesi, east of here, is getting floods every bit as bad as those in Wales and England. Logging in the jungle has compounded the problem of mudslides.

It is always a little depressing to drive into Denpasar and see, on the roadside, shop after shop selling massive slabs from tree trunks, roots, etc. I saw a news report on Al Jazeera last week in which a camera crew visited some of the illegal devastation of Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo), and there is just far too much logging going on, too much for the government here to regulate.

Anyway, I urge my friends to be very careful about buying tropical lumber. At this point, I would urge a boycott of Indonesian lumber until the government can get a handle on managing the problem. Why create a massive market force for the lumber, even through legal channels? The framework in place for managing forestry is not working.

So, as I look over my garden, an acacia tree flourishing in the moisture, alamanda vines reaching higher, I see my own little paradise maturing and becoming lush. But this rainfall is causing some big problems in larger, far more important areas.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Good words.