Four excavators were sitting atop a bog peat in Sontang village, Riau, last week. One of them was gathering up the remnants of felled trees. Another was being used to build a canal, moving and shoring up the excavated land on the side to form a boundary. Two other excavators were idle.

A day earlier, trees in an area suspected of being operated by Rokan Adiraya company, were on fire. "When the fire was extinguished, the excavators went to work cle