This may be one of the most inaccessible places on earth, but that does not mean man has not made his mark. Even here in central Irian Jaya, where people live what westerners would call a "stone age" existence, there are large tracts of cleared forest, the result of generations of cutting down trees for firewood and huts. Local people need to go ever higher up the mountainsides in order to chop down trees, and conflicts arise over whose trees are in whose territory. My guide told me a story about how, years ago, he accidentally touched off a sizable forest fire, and he laughed about it. We like to imagine that places like this are pristine and untouched, and that the local people live in some kind of perfect harmony with nature, but it's all relative.