On the opposite side of

The message is complex but ultimately clear. To Protect Borneo's forest and wildlife will require rethinking old ideas,accepting new truths,and adopting new models of conservation.And in the end,the fate of Borneo may be decide far from the forests,in government offices and corporate boardrooms from New York to Genva.Because of the vast amounts of carbon tied up in the plants and soils,the last best hope for Borneo's future may rest not on the emotional appeal of an orangutan's face,but on the hard facts of climate change-and our own determination and ability to protect ourselves from disaster.In the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan,a narrow paved road leads away from Pontianak,a city neat the South China Sea.Crowed with trucks and buzzing motorbikes,the road passes wooden shops and houses in small villages separated by rice fields.The harvest has just began,and here and there people beat sheaves against wooden lattices or toss grains into the air to let the wind carry away the hulls.There's little trace of the forests that once stood here.I'm traveling with Dessy Ratnasari,a scientist from a local research organization,whose animated faced is encircled by a light blue head scraf.Our driver,Harum who like many Indonesians,uses only one name-speaks up as we pass a large building fringed with weeds.This is a sawmill where he worked,Ratnasari translates.It went bankrupt because there are no more trees for timber.It had 13000workers and a payroll 9000.Within a couple of miles we pass two more mills,gated locked,windows broken,parking lots empty.There were several big companies and some smaller mills around Pontianak,Now there's only one big company still operating.