Friday, May. 04, 2007 By Bryan Walsh, Time
Jakarta: In the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, traffic moves as slowly as blood through a corpse. Streams of motorcycles part for SUVs and diesel-spewing buses, and everyone gets nowhere fast. The air is clogged from the vehicle exhaust and from the frequent forest fires that break out around Indonesia.
Once home to some of the most extensive rainforests in the world, Indonesia is now losing trees at a faster rate than any other nation in the world, to flames but also to rampant logging. Since equatorial trees soak up carbon dioxide when they're alive and release the gas when they're cut down or burned, Indonesia's rapid deforestation is the main reason why this country of 245 million is the third-biggest carbon emitter in the world after the U.S. and China.
But like other developing countries, the Indonesian government says it needs to focus on economic growth to raise its people out of poverty — and that likely means that trees will be cut, cars will be added and carbon emissions will only go up.
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