No matter the method of destruction, both conservation groups blame American consumers' insatiable and growing appetite for inexpensive wood for fueling the unchecked timber trade. China may be buying more tropical hardwoods than any other country, but the United States is China's biggest customer. In 2005, U.S. retail outlets and other companies (including hotels) bought at least a third of their wood products—such as furniture and flooring—from Chinese manufacturers, and that was a 1,000 percent increase over purchases in 1997.

We leave the teak farm and head to a large thatched-roof building in the small village of Lambakara. Dozens of square-cut logs are piled outside the entrance, chickens skirting around them. This is the headquarters for the Sustainable Successful Forest Cooperative (KHJL). The more than 500 members are all farmers from dozens of outlying villages who were invited to participate in the cooperative because they grow teak trees on their small plots. Since many of them owned just a few trees, which take up to 30 years to mature, they'd often take their chain saws to the protected parkland nearby. In the beginning, Unggul and his JAUH colleagues went door-to-door, patiently explaining their idea to the farmers and their families. Eco-certification was the key, they insisted. If the farmers would swear off illegal logging and learn the rigors of managing a sustainable forest, they could earn an eco label which proves that they adhere to the principles of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the gold standard among international wood certifiers. Furniture tagged with an FSC label fetches a premium price at retail outlets in the United States—including Crate & Barrel, ABC Carpet and Home, and Kmart—and teak is the material of choice for furniture designers and architects, thanks to its golden hue and natural oil that makes it resistant to water and splitting. After several months of persistent lobbying, the cooperative was formed with just 9 members. Today, its 576 members share more than 1,300 acres of land—the only FSC-certified teak forest in Southeast Asia.

Unggul, who has a Cupid tattoo on his upper arm and a boyish grin, is the only Christian among his circle of friends. Nearly 90 percent of Indonesians, including Unggul's wife, are Muslim. His affable charm, say friends and colleagues, has been instrumental in the cooperative's success. "He's a very inspirational person," says Robin Barr, a forestry adviser with Tropical Forest Trust, an international nonprofit that JAUH enlisted to help train cooperative members in sustainable forestry practices. "Instead of telling communities what they can't do, his focus is on telling them what they can do."

Since 2005, when the co-op achieved certification, members have earned nearly four times as much for their wood: The price rose from $66 per cubic meter (typically about one log) to $222. KHJL sells the logs for more than $600 apiece to furniture manufacturers in Java; the difference goes back to the cooperative. In the past three years, KHJL members have cut down 3,000 trees and planted 2 million new ones. In essence, KHJL is making more money by chopping down fewer trees. Little wonder then that the Ministry of Forestry holds up the Sulawesi cooperative as a model for other villages to follow. In August, Listya Kusuma Wardhani, the ministry's director of natural forest production, praised the efforts of KHJL: "We're expecting more of these kind of community-managed forests. We should continue to work together to help improve them," she offered. Because of KHJL's success and Unggul's dogged appeals, the ministry is granting timber concessions to farming cooperatives, and even allowing them to log in the state forest.