You Can't See the Wood for No Trees
The state of our forests is pitiful. Illegal logging is relentless, no matter who’s in power in Jakarta. For the past 10 years, wood consumption has reached 80 million cubic meters a year. Official supplies are recorded at 25 million cubic meters a year, so where do the 55 million cubic meters come from? That is the threat. Illegal logging, carried out with huge enthusiasm and on an extraordinarily large scale. The life span of our forests is now 10 years. Let’s get ready to remember them, but only in museums.
July 31, 2001
Massive trucks travel the muddy tracks cutting through the Kalimantan forest. Like a troop of worms ambling slowly, they carry logs of wood the size of poles. One by one trees are felled, bit by bit thickets of forest are cut, and these activities have been going on for more than 30 years. Countless numbers of voracious trucks have gone by. What's certain is that, at the end of the felling process—officially or illegally—there's alway
...