IN the beginning, God made millions of trees that grew wild all over the land of Riau. But the sight that greeted Police Brigadier-General Sutjiptadi when he arrived to head the police force of the Sumatran province a year ago was nothing like that.

Long a focus of activity for Indonesia’s logging industry, the trees which represent the lungs of Riau had been largely torn down in the name of profit. They had been knocked down, effectively stol