Independence for Malaysia and the resulting hostilities with Indonesia have led to changes affecting wildlife as well as humans and not always for the worse. Not only was the smuggling of animals via Singapore stopped dead, which particularly affected orang utans, and the sale of firearms and ammunition drastically controlled, with already noticeable effects on some animal populations, but the new leaders feel strongly about national assets going out of the country, whether antiques or animals, with the result that more has been done for wildlife in the past two years man in decades before. The real killer, says the author, who is Curator of the Sarawak Museum, is timber felling with vastly accelerated techniques which take machines up to 1000 ft. and lay whole jungles by the square mile a day.