Word spread fast that heavy machinery had arrived in the ancient rainforest near the Indonesian village of Sungai Mata-Mata, an expanse on the western edge of the island of Borneo that is home to orangutans, clouded leopards and sun bears.
Flouting the law, the excavators began digging trenches to drain the area’s protected wetlands. Then came the logging crews, which cut down woodlands the size of more than 2,800 football fields, in just a few days.
It was an apocalyptic sight, said Samsidar, a regional forestry official who goes by one name, recalling the devastation he encountered two years ago. “The trees had turned into piles of wood.”
Not just any kind of wood, though. The trees were meranti, a species found mostly in Indonesia and other parts of Southeast Asia, and their tropical hardwood is of particular interest to one industry in the United States: manufacturers of motor homes.
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