The human victims of environmental degradation

A third Indonesian farmer has just recently been attacked and killed by a rare Sumatran tiger, and that is only counting since the end of summer.  The most recent victim, a 25 year-old chili plantation worker, was killed at the most northern tip of Sumatra in Aceh while two previous Sumatran attacks left dead a palm oil worker in September and a rubber plantation worker in August.

This unfortunate trend has been attributed to the rapid, and often illegal, deforestation in Sumatra that pushes tigers out of their habitat when trees are cut down for timber or to make way for crops, in particular palm oil plantations.  This then forces the animals such as tigers and elephants into closer contact with people.  Last spring it was big news in Jambi when an elementary school just a couple hours away was horribly frightened by two tigers that approached it in the middle of the school day.

The Nature Conservancy estimates that Indonesia's forests are disappearing at a rate of about 300 football fields an hour.  While the government has made some encouraging promises about halting deforestation, tangible positive results are still yet to be reported.