Reuters | By Umberto Bacchi | October 25, 2017:
Indonesia is exacerbating the effects of climate change by swapping its rainforest for palm plantations in a switch that could make water more scarce and wildfires more common, scientists said on Wednesday.
The world’s biggest producer of palm oil – which is used in everything from soap to cereal – has lost almost a quarter of its forest since 1990, according to U.N. and World Bank data.
Outbreaks of haze – the result of fires that are started as a cheap way to clear land for crops – engulf the region each year. They cost the country $16 billion in 2015 and left more than 500,000 Indonesians with respiratory ailments.
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