Orangutans are disappearing, their forest homes are being destroyed, and scientists are raising their status to ‘endangered’. Why should we care? The answer is, of course, that every high profile species such as an orangutan is our indicator of the ecological health of the area in which it lives. The plight of the few remaining orangutans, Asia’s only great ape, tells us that Indonesia’s forests are sick. Sick with corruption, money-politics, greed, violence, and self-interest. And the sad fact, borne out by the inaction of President Wahid’s government, is that nobody seems to have the courage to care. The forests of Indonesia provide valuable resources to local communities, to wildlife that can generate valuable future income, and to regional and national treasuries through tariffs and taxes. The forests protect the land from erosion and play a vital role in the provision of fresh water. If a government ignores its true assets and lets them be plundered by criminals and thieves – even if some of these are powerful people – then it ignores the very basis of civil society. The situation is so serious that credible estimates of illegal logging in Indonesia suggest that 70 per cent of timber supplied to the processing sector comes from illegal logging. This means that 70 per cent of the industry avoids taxes and tariffs while uncontrollably denuding vast tracts of land. One and half million hectares of forest has been cleared every year for the past 15 years according to recent estimates from new mapping data. In August 1999 EIA and Telapak Indonesia published ‘The Final Cut’, launched a campaign and showed the commercial illegal logging of Tanjung Puting National Park to millions of television viewers in Indonesia and around the world. This world-renowned area is the only protected area for orangutans in Central Kalimantan. We named the culprits. We provided dossiers to the police and the Ministry of Forestry and Estate Crops. We returned to Tanjung Puting on a further six investigations after the launch. We presented the evidence to the then Governor of the province. The international donor community through the Consultative Group on Indonesia raised the issue with our evidence at an important seminar in January 2000. The national and international media continued to show considerable interest in the issue with some Indonesian journalists carrying out their own investigations. When EIA and Telapak