Hope still for the country's tropical forests

Between 1986 and 1998, when President Suharto’s 32-year rule came to an end, 17 million hectares of forest were cleared by timber, pulp and oil palm companies. If anything, the situation has got worse since then, not better. According to the World Bank, Indonesia is now losing 2 million hectares of forest - an area half the size of Taiwan - each year, and if present trends continue, the lowland forests of Sumatra will be gone by 2005.