The History of State Forest Management in Colonial Java

Nancy Lee Peluso Batavians! Be amazed! Hear with wonder what I have to communicate. Our fleets are destroyed, our trade languishes, our navigation is going to ruin [because] we purchase with immense treasures . . . timber and other materials for ship-building from the northern powers, and on Java we leave warlike and mercantile squadrons standing with their roots in the ground. . . . [T]he forests of Java grow as fast as they are cut, and would be inexhaustible under good care and management.