Deforestation in Indonesia

One of the factors that caused the "weak" Tropical Cyclone Senyar to become catastrophic in Sumatra, Indonesia, last month, is land-use change — specifically the conversion of millions of hectares of natural forest and vegetation into plantations and mining sites. 

According to Global Forest Watch, Indonesia lost a total of 32 million hectares of tree cover (>= 30% canopy cover) from 2001 to 2024. Visualizing this loss using Hansen Global Forest Change data via Google Earth Engine (GEE) and the Python rasterio library, shows a similar result: a gross loss of 31.85 million hectares between 2000 and 2024. The most significant losses occurred in Sumatra (14.4 million hectares) and Kalimantan (12.9 million hectares). 

Integrating with Indonesia biomass data, the analysis shows that out of the total 31.85 million hectares lost, 12.3 million hectares were primary forest (natural forest, mangroves, peat swamp forests, and other natural vegetation). Consistent with Tree Cover, Kalimantan and Sumatra experienced the highest primary forest loss, with 6.1 million hectares and 5.3 million hectares lost, respectively, between 2000 and 2024. 

Sources:

• Hansen Global Forest Change v1.12 (2000-2024)

• Global Forest Watch - Indonesia

• MapBiomas Indonesia