That was the sentiment of a report on Indonesia's tropical forests launched in Jakarta recently by the Britain-based Environmental Investigation Agency. It claimed dozens of shiploads of illegally cut logs were each month being taken from the eastern province of Papua to a port north of Shanghai to be turned into floorboards.

Senior investigator Julian Newman said the trade contravened an agreement between China and Indonesia in 2002 to stop such practices. He claimed Indonesia's military was profiting, as well as Hong Kong, Singapore and Jakarta-based middlemen, who had created forged documents.

'The 2002 agreement was quite a good document, but nothing has been done in that time,' Mr Newman said from Jakarta, adding that the ministries in both countries responsible for implementation had insufficient power.

The report came amid fears that Indonesia's dwindling natural forests would be targeted for timber to reconstruct parts of Sumatra devastated by the December 26 earthquake and tsunami. Indonesia's Forestry Minister, Malam Sambat Kaban, said up to 8.5 million cubic metres of timber would be needed in the province of Aceh.

Such figures are why Indonesia is cited by experts as one of the world's biggest environmental worries. With disappearing forests have come increased landslides and concerns about water supplies and endangered species.

A forestry official with the regional office of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, Thomas Enters, said that although Indonesia had officially lost two million hectares of forest last year, some environmentalists put the real figure at four million hectares.

In the Philippines, though, inventories showed forest cover had risen by one million hectares last year. China's media also recently reported that seven million hectares were being reforested annually on the mainland.

The UN organisation's 2003 report on the state of forests in Asia and the Pacific determined that an average of one million hectares was being lost in the region each year, although Mr Enters said that figure was now probably 1.5 million.

'The rate is slower than it used to be,' he said. 'That is because in some countries, especially in northeast Asia, forests are coming back.'

Despite China's extensive reforestation programme, the mainland is seen as the biggest challenge to the world's forests. Devastating floods on the Yangtze and Yellow rivers in 1998 killed thousands of people and the removal of forests along the banks was blamed. A ban on the cutting down of natural forests has led to timber being sought worldwide.

The president of the Washington-based environmental group Forest Trends, Michael Jenkins, said research showed the quality of the new forests to be poor.

'There's a sense that they want to become self-sufficient in their own wood needs in the next 15 years,' Mr Jenkins said. 'Our analysis, with the collaboration of many Chinese institutions, points out that that is not going to happen.

'Borneo's forests could be gone in 10 years and part of that is the demand for timber going into China, and the rapidly growing palm oil industry. The forests in the Russian Far East might be the most threatened in the world at this point because they're just on the other side of the border with China and there's a new need for currency. Myanmar's forests are certainly threatened.'

The concern is high, yet environmentalists are optimistic that Asia's developing countries will take heed of the warnings.

Trust tradition and put faith in democracy, activists such as US environmental journalist James Fahn suggest. The author of Land on Fire: The Environmental Consequences of the Southeast Asian Boom argues that degradation of Asia's environment will slow, then reverse as countries embrace democracy and build democratic institutions and strong civil societies.

'Generally, democracy is very good for the environment,' Fahn said. 'It allows the building up of civil society that can then pressure the government and business sector to take more concern for environmental issues.'

A 2001 court case in which a Thai girl was awarded damages for being injured by toxic pollution at Bangkok's port was a hopeful sign, he said. So, too, was the steadily increasing number of environmental pressure groups in the region.

Fahn, a resident in Thailand from 1990 to 1999, said he drew inspiration from the country. Over the past 40 years - most of it under military dictatorships - forest cover had fallen from 60 per cent of the country to the present 15 to 20 per cent. Under democratic governments, corruption had decreased and environmental awareness increased markedly.

He believed Indonesia and other Asian nations could use increasing wealth and relatively low urbanisation to their advantage.

'The traditional view of farmers and fishermen is to see nature as their supermarket,' Fahn said. 'It's their livelihood.'

One approach was to pay people living in or near forests to take care of their surroundings, he said. This would not necessarily be cash and could include secure land ownership, and access to markets or health clinics.

Also increasingly popular in Asia were community-based forestry movements, which gave more power to villagers.

'The basis is to give authority back to the villagers who have lost control over land they used to gather food or medicine, due to timber concessions and the like,' he said.

Fahn summed up the mood. 'I'm an optimist by nature,' he said. 'There are plenty of reasons for doom and gloom, but I am hopeful.'