Ever so often, we hear about another patch of forest being cleared, excised or reclassified. But if you've ever tried to find out exactly what happened, when it happened, or whether it was even legal, you'll know just how difficult that information can be to access. That's exactly the problem journalist Law Yao Hua set out to solve. Drawing on years of reporting, hundreds of official gazettes and forest reserve maps, he has created Fate of Our Forests, a platform that brings together more than two decades of official changes to forest reserves across Peninsular Malaysia. It's an ambitious project that aims to make forest data more accessible, transparent and useful for everyone. Yao Hua joins us to tell us how the platform came together, what it can reveal, and why understanding the fate of our forests should matter to all Malaysians.

<p>Ever so often, we hear about another patch of forest being cleared, excised or reclassified. But if you've ever tried to find out exactly what happened, when it happened, or whether it was even legal, you'll know just how difficult that information can be to access. That's exactly the problem journalist Law Yao Hua set out to solve. Drawing on years of reporting, hundreds of official gazettes and forest reserve maps, he has created <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://yhlreporter.github.io/fate-of-our-forests/">Fate of Our Forests</a>, a platform that brings together more than two decades of official changes to forest reserves across Peninsular Malaysia. It's an ambitious project that aims to make forest data more accessible, transparent and useful for everyone. Yao Hua joins us to tell us how the platform came together, what it can reveal, and why understanding the fate of our forests should matter to all Malaysians.</p>

Climate change, ferocious weather and ‘the haze’ are now part our everyday lives. How are our lifestyles connected to them, and what can we do about it? What does the economy have to do with it? Earth Matters engages with activists and experts to explore our changing relationship with the planet that we only borrow from our children.