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What-If

Explore what could change.

Choose a place, a documented issue and one of its documented interventions, then set how far it goes.

ILLUSTRATIVE SCENARIO — NOT A SCIENTIFIC PREDICTION. Built from documented causes, impacts and solutions plus general qualitative patterns. It contains no modelled numbers.

3 · Intervention
PilotScaledTransformative

Adopted across much of the area, with dedicated budgets and enforcement.

Illustrative scenario

What if Kalimantan / Indonesian Borneo took a scaled approach to “Moratorium on new clearing permits”?

Starting point · documented

NatureSeverity: Critical
Deforestation and peatland fires in Kalimantan

Forest conversion and drained peatlands have made Kalimantan a hotspot for biodiversity loss and fire-driven emissions.

The intervention · documented

Moratorium on new clearing permits

A permanent moratorium on new licences in primary forest and peatland.

Limits further legal conversion of the most carbon-rich areas.

Schematic direction of change

Halting loss can happen faster than restoring what has been lost; ecosystems recover over years to decades.

Schematic, unitless illustration: relative pressure over time without the intervention compared with the intervention in place. Not based on measured data.NowLonger term →Relative pressure (unitless)
Without the intervention With the interventionSchematic shape only — no data, units or dates.

Causes this could address

  • Plantation expansionConversion of forest for oil palm and pulpwood plantations.
  • Peatland drainageCanals lower the water table, leaving peat dry and flammable.
  • Fire used for land clearingFire is used as a cheap way to clear land and can spread uncontrollably into peat.
  • Mining and loggingCoal and mineral mining and timber extraction fragment and degrade forests.

Impacts that could ease

  • Habitat loss for orangutans and other speciesFragmentation reduces populations of endangered wildlife.
  • Transboundary hazeSmoke from peat fires affects air quality across Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.

Wider reach at higher intensity is an assumption of this illustration.

How change might unfold

  1. Near term

    Rates of clearing or degradation can slow where protection is enforced.

  2. Medium term

    Restored areas begin to function, supporting some species and services.

  3. Long term

    Mature habitat and biodiversity return slowly, and some losses are irreversible.

Faded stages are less likely to be reached at scaled intensity.

What this would not change

Extinctions cannot be reversed, and market, governance and climate pressures continue outside protected areas.

What it depends on

  • Sustained funding and institutional capacity
  • Consistent enforcement and monitoring
  • Local stakeholder support
  • Participation of affected communities

ILLUSTRATIVE SCENARIO — NOT A SCIENTIFIC PREDICTION. Built from documented causes, impacts and solutions plus general qualitative patterns. It contains no modelled numbers.

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