I

really don'€™t understand how the majority of you can stand by and watch Indonesia'€™s precious natural environment be destroyed under your very noses.

Aceh is about to lose 1.2 million hectares of protected rainforest to companies like the East Asia Minerals corporation.

You are passively standing by and allowing the development of mines, oil palm plantations, roads and logging in one of the few remaining pristine areas that are home to Indonesia'€™s unique and highly endangered wildlife.

You should be proud of your natural environment, proud of the species that inhabit these areas, species that are to be found nowhere else on this planet.

Instead you passively allow exploitation of your natural environment and resources by multinational corporations. You allow brutal and inhumane treatment of both your wildlife and indigenous communities.

You allow illegal clearing of precious rainforest and suffer from the smoke blanketing your cities from forest fires.

And for what? Most of the profits made by these corporations flow overseas.

Locals, small landholders and indigenous communities gain nothing except landslides, floods and other problems.

I have met and count as friends wonderful Indonesians doing all they can to save your natural heritage, but they can'€™t do it alone.

You, the everyman Indonesian, must demand now that your government steps in and saves protected rainforest. Save your endangered orangutans, rhinos and elephants, save your incredible biodiversity.

Save yourselves!

Rinni Jell
Jakarta