Yet these tracts "give way to rubber and oil-palm plantations owned by untouchable companies, " just as the Kapuas river teems with logs felled by similarly connected operators.

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Hundreds of logs that appeared to have been felled by saws lay amid the wreckage of the most ravaged communities, in the provinces of Quezon and Aurora, suggesting that deforestation did, indeed, contribute to the destruction brought about by a not untypical series of tropical storms.

ECONOMIST: The government has few options bar rhetoric