Indonesia has a wealth of natural resources, including oil, gas, coal and metals. Perhaps the country's most precious resource of all is its forests, yet they are seriously under threat.

© Dermot Tatlow/Panos Pictures Illegal logging and forest clearance by settlers is destroying Kalimantan's remaining forests. Click on the image to find out more.

What a racket

Covering an area nearly the size of France, the rainforests of West Papua have been called, 'the last great wilderness of Asia'. But in February 2005, environmentalists uncovered the world's biggest smuggling racket of merbau wood, a hardwood found in West Papua mainly used for flooring. Every month, 300,000 cubic metres of Indonesian merbau ends up in China's timber processing yards.

© Sam Lawson/Environmental Investigation Agency

© Dave Currey/Environmental Investigation Agency

Since the Indonesian government banned exports of tropical hardwood in 2001, much of it has been smuggled to neighbouring countries like Malaysia first. Here, the timber is re-labelled before it is sold on.

In December 2002, Indonesia and China agreed to work together to stamp out the trade in illegal timber. But the smuggling business is very difficult to track. Environmentalists claim that members of the Indonesian police and army are involved. They take bribes to guard illegal logging sites, make deals with local landowners, and allow boats filled with illegal timber to sail out of Indonesian waters unchallenged.

For the smugglers, the trade is very profitable too. Back in West Papua, local communities receive only $10 for a cubic metre of merbau. In China it is sold for $270 per cubic metre.

Time is running out - at current rates of deforestation, Indonesia's primary rainforests could all be gone within five years. Click on the clock to find out some of the possible ways of saving them.

Download the full report, "The last frontier" from the Environmental Investigation Agency website. The Illegal logging website is also worth a visit.

For more information on the global timber trade, including statistics and graphs, visit www.globaltimber.org.uk/.