This radar Envisat acquisition highlights Indonesia’s Kalimantan region in the southern part of tropical Borneo in South East Asia. Borneo, the world’s third largest island, was once covered in dense rainforests. However, in the 1980s and 1990s these forests were cleared for their timber at an alarming rate. Soon after, the global demand for palm oil increased and what was left of Borneo’s forests started being cleared for palm plantations (visible as square green patches). This image was acquired on 23 April 2009 by Envisat’s Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) instrument.
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Envisat satellite</div>
<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2009/06/Indonesia_s_Kalimantan_region">http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2009/06/Indonesia_s_Kalimantan_region</a>