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KUTAI NATIONAL PARK, Indonesia55 — Countless houses and shops built by squatters flank the 40-mile, two-lane road slicing through this national park that, once rich with orangutans and lowland rain forest56, now symbolizes Indonesia’s struggle to protect its rare wildlife.

At one spot by the road, Mursidin, a farmer in his 50s, was one of many people building a home from the park’s trees. Using a sander and a saw hooked to a red generator, he was polishing and laying sheets of wood on the house’s frame

Control over the country’s 50 national parks, including Kutai, has grown murky in the past decade as authority has shifted from the central government to the provinces as part of a decentralization of power. Local governments, emphasizing economic development over conservation, have seen parks bursting with natural resources as a way to fill their coffers.

Nowadays, squatters have burned and cleared the areas on either side of Kutai National Park's road.