Just below the equator, on the island of Borneo, a tropical rain forest is rising out of a logged, charred wasteland. Dawn mists cling to the leaves of ginger and mango trees erupting out of a tangle of ferns, rattan and yam vines. A sparse canopy of white-barked acacias shelters them in filtered shade as the sun burns through the haze. From deep in the distance a tuneless chorus of gibbons booms over the clamor of cicadas, while a white-bellied sea eagle soars silently above.

For Willie Smits, this is a miracle in a moonscape. Emerging from what was a biological desert, it contradicts everything most forestry experts have long believed about rain forests. Smits has named it Samboja Lestari, “Everlasting Forest.” It gives hope to this ravaged landscape and the thousands of species that depend on it. Most important for Smits, the forest growing before his very eyes is the promise of a future for the world’s few surviving orangutans.

7 Comments

1. 1. eco-steve 11:27 AM 12/10/08

   Most timber from Borneo (and east Asia in general) is logged to provide wood for false antique furniture in the developed World. There is also the crazy fashion in Europe to surround houses with wooden terraces.
   We can all do our bit as consumers by choosing only products made from local timber.

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2. 2. Pat O'Green 05:28 AM 12/27/08

   We will neve stop habitat destruction and deforestation. All nations are guilty of it. It would be great to conserve all remaining forests, but this is just a fantasy. So nations should do what they can to protect and develop their own forest and eco-systems. I like this work, we need to use our human skills to re-create what we can of the destroyed eco-systems. If all we try to do is conserve then we will be continually going backwards and will only have bad news. This work offers a way forward.Its time to do our best to restore and not just to bemoan losses.

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3. 3. alphachapmtl 01:31 PM 1/7/09

   Too many pages for this article.
   Why not longer less numerous pages?
   Why not one page?

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4. 4. GloomBoom.com 03:38 PM 1/7/09

   Poor countries will always destroy their forests. It is sad but we can really help them out. Good article.

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5. 5. savetheorangutan 12:36 AM 1/9/09

   Find out more about the work of Willie Smits and the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation at www.redapes.org or www.savetheorangutan.co.uk.
   

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6. 6. jrennie 06:56 PM 4/27/09

   Willie Smits contacted Scientific American after this article's publication to point out some inaccuracies in it. (The author and our fact checkers made every effort to verify everything before publication but Smits's relative inaccessibility in Borneo made that difficult.) Some corrections particularly worth noting:
   
   -- Smits has in fact published some of his research. He writes: "We have hundreds of scientific studies going on which are published in Indonesian but also in many reference journals around the world. Those are not all in my name but the work of many of our collaborators from all over the world, amongst others Germany, Netherlands, Canada, America, England, who are invited to come and study this work in progress and have published on many different aspects."
   
   -- Smits was not predicting that orangutans would be extinct by 2012; rather, that by 2012 it will no longer be possible to prevent its future extinction.
   
   -- According to Smits, the orangutans' forests were not destroyed for palm oil; rather, he says, the palm oil companies harvested the wood for quick income.

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7. 7. katherine James 06:05 PM 11/10/09

   I need to create a diagram that shows how some of the plants and animals are connected.

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