14 February 2011, Telegraph (telegraph.co.uk) News - Malaysia is destroying its forests more than three times faster than all of Asia combined, new satellite imagery has shown, with demand for palm oil the reason for the clearance.

A report commissioned by the Netherlands-based Wetlands International says Malaysia is uprooting an average two per cent of the rainforest a year on Sarawak, its largest state on the island of Borneo, or nearly 10 per cent over the last five years.

Most of it is being converted to palm oil plantations, it said.

The deforestation rate for all of Asia during the same period was 2.8 per cent.

In the last five years, 872,263 acres of Malaysia's peatlands were deforested, or one-third of the swamps which have stored carbon from decomposed plants for millions of years.

"We never knew exactly what was happening in Malaysia and Borneo," said Alex Kaat, spokesman for Wetlands International.

"Now we see there is a huge expansion (of deforestation) with annual rates that are beyond imagination."

The study was carried out by SarVision, a satellite monitoring and mapping company that originated with scientists at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

"Total deforestation in Sarawak is 3.5 times as much as that for entire Asia, while deforestation of peat swamp forest is 11.7 times as much," the report said. Malaysia's peatland forests are home to several endangered animals, including the Borneo pygmy elephant and the Sumatran rhino, as well as rare timber species and unique vegetation

Mr Kaat said the study showed deforestation was progressing far faster than the Malaysian government has acknowledged.