A view of the inter-island "timber port" of Jakarta. Indonesia is extremely rich in tropical forests and most of its forestry byproducts pass through the capital's main port. - - General: General. The Republic of Indonesia is made up of 13,700 islands housing an estimated population of 185 million citizens. Indonesia's vast tropical forests are the most extensive in all of Asia and the Pacific, and forest exports provide the country with its second largest source of badly needed foreign exchange, after petroleum. However, deforestation, estimated at 900,000 ha. a year by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), is a major problem. FAO is the executing agency for a major forestry project funded by the World Bank that aims to quantify the extent, types, value and most rational future use of the Indonesian forestry wealth and to provide the country with a long-term plan for all phases of its forests and forest industries.