Once More With Footnotes

one young male was taking too intelligent an interest in how to start the engine. I remember the gentle feel of a hand th a t could have crushed every bone in mine.
     
                  And I remember that when I left Borneo there were also long, long rafts of logs floating down the Sekonyer River, and a smell of smoke in the air.
     
                  Things have got worse, not better. The orangutans are dying out because the rainforests of Indonesia are being killed.
     
                  More than half the timber coming out of Borneo and Sumatra is illegally logged. Even national parks are not safe. A few weeks ago illegal loggers trashed the headquarters at Tanjung Puting National P ark. When you're big enough, and powerful enough, and pay the right people, you can do what you like. Greed and corruption are calling the shots.
     
                  As they say in Borneo: "It's illegal — but it's official."
     
                  Oh, there have been successes. They have been ach ieved by careful and patient negotiation, like tap dancing on quicksand, and I take off my hat to the people who have done it.
     
                  But since my visit and despite all the efforts, the orangutans are still losing. It was hoped that the new Indonesian governmen t could reverse the trend, but nothing in Indonesia is ever straightforward. People like me, who aren't patient, wonder what good is a National Park as a refuge when it is just another source of timber.
     
                  The Foundation is even sponsoring additional patrol s of local people to support the understaffed park rangers. It is the sort of initiative that was never envisaged when it was set up. It has taken some very delicate negotiation. They cannot be seen to be interfering with the internal affairs of a soverei g n country. So no weapons will be involved. In truth, the park is not as uncivilised as, say, some parts of Los Angeles, so not even the bad guys ate using guns. But the illegal loggers have quite big machetes and a certain insouciance. The rangers have ... er ... well, they have right on their side. Presumably, in a tight corner, they can use harsh language.
     
                  This is hardly ideal, but it may help impress on local people that the orangutans are themselves a resource. It is the "eco-tourism" argument. How mu ch would you pay to see orangutans in the wild, especially if you knew the money was helping to preserve their forest? Currently it's about 12p, the cost of a day ticket into the park, and they throw in the birds and trees for free. There's a bit of scope there, I think.
     
                  Unfortunately, what looms is something worse than logging. There has always been logging, legal and illegal. Loggers come and go. The forest can heal, in time.
     
                  It's plantations that are now the big and growing problem. Vast tracts of fo rmer forest are taken over for agribusiness with the help of foreign investment. They grow palms for palm oil, and a species of acacia to feed new wood pulp mills. This is a profitable business, but it means that the forest can't return. There is nothing f or the apes in these barren tree factories.
     
                  We benefit, even if we don't realise it. The pulp makes paper, the trees make everything from chipboard to your nice hardwood doors. We can try to shop conscientiously, but that is getting harder to do.
     
                  We li ve in a global economy now and, increasingly, the apes don't. They are being pushed to the edges, and they're running out of edges. I can't crack a joke about that.
     
                  We made a big fuss over the possibility of microbes on Mars. If orangutans were Martians we'd cherish them, we'd be so amazed at how they're like us but not like us, they'd be invited to tea and cigars at the White House.
     
                  But they're apes, sad in zoos, funny in movies, useful in advertisements and in fantasy books, I'm almost ashamed to say, but at least the Discworld's Librarian has done his bit for the species and caused more than a few bob to flow their way. But the problem, unfortunately, is not money. The problem is lots of money.
     
                  A million years ago the orangutans watched Java Man wal k into Indonesia. Perhaps there are only a few years left now before we