The vanishing forest -- Borneo

BORNEO, Indonesia -- Borneo has always seemed a mysterious place to me. The third largest island in the world is the home of the orangutan and gibbon, freshwater dolphins, hornbills, crocodiles, and leopards; of thousands of species of plants; and of ethereal forest people such as the Dayaks.

Borneo has a place in literature. It's treasures have been described in classic nonfiction works by Odoardo Beccari, Charles Brooke and Alfred Russel Wallace; as well as by modern writers, including Redmond O'Hanlon and Eric Hanson. The island was also featured in the fiction of the master, Joseph Conrad.

The island has vast wealth, unfortunately, its greatest wealth -- of its bountiful natural resources -- is being depleted at an alarming rate. I am glad I was able to see a part of it before it is destroyed, but I was also a witness to the destruction.