Promise and peril in Indonesia

Abstract

[Extract] For many years I worked in the Brazilian Amazon, which until recently held the dubious honor of being the world's deforestation 'leader'. Fortunately, forest destruction has declined somewhat in Brazil, but it continues apace in Indonesia.

What are we to think about Indonesia? For biologists like myself, the country often provokes visions of ancient rainforests being razed by slash-and-burn farmers, and endangered tigers and orangutans fleeing from the growling bulldozers of logging corporations.

This reality is true, but there is also hope on the horizon.