Indonesia is on fire. So why is no one talking about it?

There is a massive environmental and humanitarian disaster going on as we speak. Why is no one talking about it?

Indonesia is on fire. You may have heard of the news in passing, but it should be on the front page of every newspaper.

The fires have already incinerated an area the size of New Jersey. They have affected, according to some estimates, up to 500,000 people with respiratory disease. They are threatening endangered orangutans and other priceless wildlife. The long-term environmental damage is perhaps incalculable; Indonesia is home to some of the world's largest rainforests.

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What are the causes? Some people blame reckless logging. The fires are mostly over peatlands, which some say have expanded dramatically as a result of deforestation. Indonesia exports lots of wood, both precious and mundane, as well as palm oil. The Indonesian government has regulations in place to keep logging responsible, but those regulations are not always applied; some officials can be made to look the other way. And while it cannot be proven, the impact of climate change cannot be discounted either.

When we read about some terrible catastrophe in the third world, we tend to forget that it is social institutions, like the rule of law, that best alleviate natural disasters, more so than dams or fire teams. Norway's government set up a $1 billion fund to encourage Indonesia to curb deforestation — and probably to offset the Nordic country's own gas-related emissions — but only $50 million has been paid out because the Indonesian government is so ineffectual.

We also probably aren't hearing about the tragedy enough because there's so little to be done at this point. The fire is creating a lot of smoke, which makes it very hard for fire crews to access endangered areas, which means it will be very hard to put out the fire now that it has gotten so large.

But this is as good an occasion as any to point out that the West does not pay nearly enough attention to Indonesia. We hear about China's economy a lot, sometimes about India's. We hear about Russia, although mostly because of its president's audacious gambits (or shirtless photos).

Yet Indonesia is a unique country. Made up of 235 million people, it is an incredibly diverse place — the world's largest archipelago, made up of thousands of islands, many with unique cultures. Its biodiversity is astonishing. And it has an economy that's growing very fast. Some people have tried to remake the famous acronym BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) of emerging markets leaders into BRIICS (Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia, China, South Africa), but it hasn't caught on, sadly. (We don't pay enough attention to South Africa, either.)

And Indonesia is a Muslim-majority country, the largest Muslim-majority country in the world, in fact, and one that is democratic and largely peaceful. (Indonesia has had some problems with terrorism and insurgencies, but it is Switzerland compared to the Middle East.)

But, well, we just don't care as much about Indonesia as we do about Russia or India or China. When one of the world's most important countries goes up in flames, we yawn.

Indonesia may be on fire, but we're dumb.