Your Car Tires Are Running Over Orangutans and Other Endangered Species

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A boom in Southeast Asian rubber plantations to meet demand for automobile tires in China and elsewhere is wiping out rainforests that are home to threatened wildlife.


(Photo: Anup Shah/Getty Images)


http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/04/27/rubber-plantations-deforestation-rainforest-orangutans-endangered-species

April 27, 2015 By Richard Conniff

Richard Conniff is the author of The Species Seekers: Heroes, Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earth and other books.


A lot of shoppers now routinely reach for fair-trade coffee. Many also look for foods that contain no palm oil, a notorious destroyer of tropical forests. Few, however, think about the tires on their car. But the typical car tire is 28 percent natural rubber. It comes from rubber trees grown on plantations, and those plantations are rapidly replacing forests across vast swaths of Southeast Asia.

According to a new paper published in Conservation Letters, the rubber tree is now the fastest-growing crop in Southeast Asia. Car tires consume 70 percent of the production, and demand is booming, largely because of the rapid rise of the Chinese economy. Without major changes, the rubber trade is on track to eat up between 10 million and 21 million acres of tropical forest over the next decade.

The larger figure works out to more than 30,000 square miles of forest, an area roughly the size of South Carolina, and it will mean taking down habitat for a stunning diversity of species, from orchids to elegant sunbirds.

Many of the forests that are likely to become rubber plantations are hot spots for plant and animal diversity. When the Sundaland region of Borneo and Sumatra goes, for instance, it’s likely to take the critically endangered Sumatran orangutan with it. The cattle-like banteng, with fewer than 5,000 individuals surviving across Southeast Asia, is another likely victim.

FULL story at link.

Richard Conniff is a regular contributor to TakePart. He is the author of seven books, including his latest, The Species Seekers: Heroes, Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earth. He has won a National Magazine Award, a Gerald Loeb Award, and a 2007 Guggenheim Fellowship. His articles have appeared in Time, Smithsonian, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, and other publications. He has written and presented television shows for networks including the National Geographic Channel, TBS, and the BBC. You can follow his Facebook