File:The Amazon syndrome - on the bottom of a Malaysian river 30 feet under.jpg

English: The extensive deforestation of the Amazon rainforest - the lung of the Earth - has now caused a critical shortage of river water so that large areas of the once wide river are no longer navigable. Interspersed with periods of major flooding as a result of the climate change, which this year has been reinforced by the climate phenomenon El Niño. On the bottom of a river 30 feet under. In 2014, deforestation in favour of oil palm plantations in Malaysia caused this crisis of low water levels, pictured here, which followed widespread flooding of the Temberling river in central Malaysia, causing devastating destruction with many lives lost as the river submerged large areas of the lowlands downstream. Over 90 000 people in southern Malaysia were forced to flee their homes due to floods and landslides in the wake of the climate crisis. Forty years ago, this area was completely covered in virgin lowland rainforest and the river bank reached 10 meters higher, without these disastrous seasonal variations, at the edge of the settlement you see in the picture. The high tide of the 2014 reached a new unwanted record and also flooded the settlements here in Tahan village itself. Some houses were still hanging over the edge after the monsoon season in April year 2015 when I was there. The vegetation that now lines the river is poor secondary vegetation; forty years ago it consisted of pristine, towering lowland tropical rainforest. But the gibbon's song can still be heard from the village.