The finitude of forests A scheme to save the world’s rainforests
still seems too good to be true AS THE heavens open, the canopy
offers scant protection from the downpour, so the orang-utans
tear leaves off the trees to make pathetic little umbrellas to
hold over their heads. It is an endearingly human gesture but,
as a means of keeping dry, almost entirely futile. And it is not
just the rain that makes these creatures seem so helpless. The
relentless destruction of their tropical-forest habitat has
endangered their entire species. In Borneo, in the Indonesian
province of Central Kalimantan, they can relax in a camp devoted
to their welfare on the edge of the Tanjung Puting national
park. But the park—415,000 hectares of protected tropical heath
forest and peat forest—is surrounded by oil-palm plantations.
These orang-utans are refugees from forests cleared to make way
for the plantations. Much as people like the creatures, and
devotedly as conservationists work, the park is not enough to
stem their remorsele