Transmigration of people to the forest frontier whether forced or voluntary due to development policy or dislocation from war is the major indirect cause of deforestation (Mather, 1991; Colchester and Lohmann, 1993; Sands, 2005). Moreover, governments and international aid agencies earlier believed that by encouraging colonisation and transmigration schemes into rainforest areas could alleviate poverty of the areas in the financially poorer countries. Such schemes have miserably failed but hurted the indigenous people and the environment. In Indonesia, the Transmigrasi Program of 1974 had caused annual deforestation of two lakh hectares (Colchester and Lohmann, 1993). Dispossessed and landless people bring increased population pressure to the forest frontier. Further, new migrants in the area increase demand for food and other agricultural products which can induce the farmers at the forest frontier to increase their agricultural production by expanding agricultural land by clearing the forests (Levang, 2002). Moreover, the new migrants may not care for conservation of the forests in their new home which further accelerates deforestation of the area.
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