Deforestation is rarely good for local communities. Having lived on the land often for hundreds or thousands of years, the deforested land is usually sold off. Furthermore it can no longer be used as a resource for food gathering – and often without the forest the rains are less reliable so local farm crops fail.
It is thought that as much as 70 million hectares could be lost if this goes through. This is 270,000 square miles an area the size of Morocco lost.
Even with the moratorium in place three logging leases have been given to Chinese companies.
What makes this threat even greater, is that some of this area that would be deforested lies in the peatland areas, which could mean the end of the peatlands and the release of billions of tonnes of carbon (these peatlands are thought to contain 30 billion tonnes of carbon
