I observed that many countries have different environmental care problems along the way which I have traveled. But the worst problems are happening in South East Asia, especially near the equator and in the native rain forests in Malaysia and Indonesia.
When I was flying from Katmandu to Kuala Lumpur, I saw over the air that Malaysia is a green place full of trees. Everywhere was full of trees and there was no empty place. But the reality was something different, it was really artificially green land and no natural features there. It was my first view of South East Asia which I have seen and the reality showed up right after I began to cycle and discover the country through my eyes…what a sad story.
The route which I took was the west coastline from Kuala Lumpur to the north. There are 3 different ethnic groups living in Malaysia: Malay, Indian and Chinese.
The West is more populated than the east, so there is more need for jobs. The people need more jobs, more money to survive and the first thing which is readily available to them is the land. There is so much land from the forest and there is a good opportunity for the people to earn some money out of the land. So the first thing that the people need is to have pure land area without trees, which they can make a farm. They began to cut as much trees as they can and they replanted the land with palm oil trees. It is still green and looks like a forest, but not natural.
When I was cycling through the palm plantation it was really easy to see how the temperature there is different than when I was cycling in pure forest.
The old and native rainforests are going to disappear and the palm oil trees are taking their place in the future, and for sure the wildlife is not happy with what is happening with the rainforests because there will be no more food and place for them to live. That is why the number of native animals in South East Asia is decreasing and some of them are getting extinct and going to say goodbye to our planet forever like the orangutans.
In the eastern part of Malaysia, the people are mostly native or Malay. There are no more Indian and Chinese and it is less populated than the western part so it is easy to see more native forest and trees, instead of palm oil plantation.
Economic reason is the major reason why the government and the people plant more palm oil trees and destroy more forest and they still believe that it is green but here are the sad facts according to some research:
With palm oil prices up nearly 68 percent since January 2006, plantations now cover about 4 million hectares in Malaysia. Of late the Malaysian government has leaned heavily on the production of palm-oil-based bio-fuels, offering it to the world as a remedy to our current fossil fuel crisis, and global warming woes.

Unfortunately, current research states otherwise. In fact, recent studies have concluded that the cutting of forests for palm-oil plantations has been a major a contributor of CO2 to the atmosphere. Subsequently, the drying or burning of peat-bogs during this process has proven to produce as much as eight-times the amount of CO2 emissions than that of the mineral diesel it replaces. If there were a solution to the earth's environmental issues, it didn't seem to be coming from the oil-palm industry.
It is hard to hear the sound of machines cutting the trees everywhere in these countries.
Mammoth bulldozers and machines busied themselves, tearing at the heart of the forests, cutting down the trees with cyclonic fury the equivalent to about 300 soccer fields every hour. At this rate, scientists predict the extinction of the wild Orangutan within the next 12 years. (www.rickgunnphotography.com)
It was a short but very sad story about Malaysia and Indonesia also is the same or might be even worse than Malaysia. I entered Indonesia through the Dumai in the island of Sumatra, a most beautiful place which I have traveled. From Dumai I began to discover and explore the country on my bicycles wheels.
I cycled through West, Central and also South Sumatra. I passed many forests and farms. The story in Indonesia is the same as it was in Malaysia. Everywhere I could see palm oil plantations as far as my eyes could cover. Everywhere I hear the worst sound I have heard in my life – the sound of chainsaw machines cutting the trees. It was like they are tearing my heart and by a short look at the side of the road, the rubber trees were leaking the white liquid on a small pot attached to the removed skin trunks.
Rubber and palm oil are the ways of making money in Indonesia as well as in Malaysia.
But the problem is that the money does not go to the people working in the plantation. The people only earn a small sum of money enough for them to survive.

I cycled about 2,000 kms in Sumatra and I saw just a few small areas which were pure forests and the rest of the places are just industrial plantations.
The other problem for palm oil and rubber plantations is that every few years they have to change the trees with young trees and they have to cut all the existing trees to replant and in this process it is easy to know what will happen to the animals that are living there. Many of them will die or will be hunted by people or will become prey to other animals and their number will be influenced by this.
All of those palm and rubber trees do not have a life span of more than 30 years and the same story will happen under the ground --the life under the ground will also be affected by this replanting. And it is not all the problem in Indonesia. There is another major problem which is that the people just throw their garbage everywhere and they don’t care about where the plastics and other non recyclable materials go. Most of the people just try to make the garbage disappear from their view. Throwing garbage is a problem in most Asian countries, but Malaysia was much better than the other countries. The people there really care about this matter and they try to keep everywhere clean. 
In the next few years, I think there won’t be any more virgin forests left in South East Asia and as a consequence of this way of treating our planet, we will have more environmental problems like global warming and the other countless problems we are facing with.
In the near future it will be hard to find any forest in these countries and the wild life will completely change. Many kinds of animals will die and there will be more disasters to destroy cities and lives.
The fact is that the Mother Earth will treat itself and the nature will survive by itself, but meanwhile many people will be affected by these changes and we might be one of those who will be victims of this process.