A reminder of the importance of preserving the environment

A reminder of the importance of preserving the environment

Archipelago: The Islands of Indonesia: From the nineteenth-
century discoveries of Alfred Russel Wallace to the fate of
forests and reefs in the twenty-first century.
by Davan Daws and Marty Fujita
Published in Association with The Nature Conservancy
by University of California Press, Berkeley, U.S.A., 1999
254 pages

JAKARTA (JP): When Alfred Russel Wallace, the world's greatest
field naturalist, first stood at the harbor of Ambon, the
clearness of the water afforded him one of the most astonishing
and beautiful sights. He noticed that the bottom was absolutely
hidden by a continuous series of corals, sponges, actiniae and
other marine productions of magnificent dimensions, varied forms
and brilliant colors. In and out among them moved numbers of blue
and red and yellow fishes spotted and banded and striped in the
most striking manner, while great orange medusae floated along
near the surface.

It was a sight he gazed at for hours concluding that perhaps
no spot in the world was richer in corals, shells and fishes than
the harbor of Ambon.

Embedded in the shallow waters of the Sunda and Sahel shelves
and scattered throughout the deep Timor, Banda and Flores seas,
Indonesia's constellation of 17,500 islands fringe coastal and
marine habitats that are among the most productive and species-
rich on earth.

The complex coral reefs of the Banda Sea in Maluku represent
some of the greatest diversity of marine life in the world.

Unfortunately there seems to be an attempt today to flood the
same waters with the blood of rioters who are at each other's
throats over economic and religious differences, while the
pristine reefs described by Wallace in 1858 have been ravaged by
pollution and sedimentation.

However, the plight of Ambon, the capital of Maluku, was not
always so pathetic. Centuries before the European age of
exploration, Ambon, the earthquake island, was the center of the
celebrated spice trade, where rich rulers coveted the much-prized
nutmeg, whose aromatic seed was worth its weight in gold.

The earliest records of Ambon's importance date back to 200
A.D. Spanish and Portuguese navigators arrived in the 15th
century to the legendary spice islands and later the Dutch moved
in to establish large nutmeg and clove plantations. But Wallace
did not travel more than half way around the world from his home
in England to make himself rich. He came to the Malay archipelago
because he suspected life had originated there amid nature in all
its infinite variety and lavish productivity.

In Maluku, Wallace was most at home on the tiny Ternate, the
virgin island with breathtaking sights and species. In the
solitude of this paradisial setting, Wallace pondered the origins
of life. It was from here that in the same year he mailed to
Charles Darwin his earth-shaking essay on evolution by natural
selection which was presented to the world by Darwin in England
even as Wallace remained lost among wild nature and uncultured
man.

Darwin's and Wallace's ideas on evolution came independently
to both men as they traveled separately, but concerned themselves
with the question of the evolution of all species from a common
ancestor. While Darwin received his insights from the birds of
the Galapagos Islands of the Spanish archipelago across the
equator in the Pacific Ocean west of Ecuador, Wallace made the
vastly larger and richer islands of present-day Malaysia and
Indonesia his biological laboratory.

Here Wallace spent eight years and roamed 14,000 miles among
different islands -- often aboard mail steamers, Bugis schooners
and small, handmade fishing boats called prau -- catching
insects, examining strange fruits and skinning birds and
orangutans.

Being in the Malay archipelago allowed Wallace to note the
differences in species on the different islands. His recognition
of the huge differences in species on the two nearby islands of
Bali and Lombok gave birth to an important insight into the
history of the earth. This insight became known as the famous
Wallace Line which separates the regions of Asia and Australia,
which began separating from one another about 180 million years
ago.

The fascinating story of the discoveries of Wallace and the
beginning of ecological awareness and conservation biology is
told by authors Gavan Daws and Marty Fujita in a new book called
Archipelago: The Islands of Indonesian, published in association
with The Nature Conservancy.

Wallace's archipelago, a spectacle hundreds of millions of
years in the making and rich beyond imagination is still there.
However, the archipelago, one of humanity's great endowments, is
badly shrunken today, fragmented and under furious assault from
both within and outside.

"Indeed, Alfred Russel Wallace would hardly recognize today's
Indonesia," bemoans John C.Sawhill, The Nature Conservancy
president and CEO, in an epilogue to the 254-page coffee-table
publication.

Wallace's beloved tropical forests are now full of the
deafening noise of logging saws and the rivers are fouled by mine
tailings. To many, modern-day Indonesia, with its dying coral
reefs and ravaged rain forests, simply echo scenes from around
the world. Such environmental ruin is even fast becoming an
accepted aspect of modernization.

"Over 40 percent of the coral reefs are now in poor
condition," says Soekarno, a senior researcher at Indonesia's
National Science Institute who fears that if nothing is done the
majority of the reefs will be lost forever in 30 to 50 years
time, mainly due to destructive fishing practices.

Reconciling the brave new world of industrialization,
technological advances and inclusion in world markets with the
natural world that ultimately sustains it is seen by Sawhill as
the greatest challenge of the new millennium.

And nowhere is this challenge more evident than in Indonesia,
home to the natural world's most spectacular creations, but where
some of the worst kinds of environmental abuse and neglect are
impoverishing not just Indonesians, but the rest of the world as
well.

In an attempt to halt the wholesale destruction of species
biodiversity, development projects are suggested, including
working with local communities to harvest and sell rattan -- the
climbing palm highly valued in furniture markets -- in order to
protect rattan species throughout Sulawesi's forests. One source
of hope for the reefs is to revive the traditional sasi system of
fishing, where villagers have exclusive fishing rights and
regulate their take and prevent overharvesting.

There is much urgency in the air, as the current rate of
species extinction is said to parallel the mass extinction of
dinosaurs millions of years ago. And once gone, a species can
never return.

This book is a reminder that long before there ever was a
global economy there was a global ecology, a web of life imbuing
species and ecosystems with a common future. While governments
take their own sweet time understanding this, the least that
individuals can do in this moment of emergency is buy this book,
all proceeds from which will benefit Indonesia's still
magnificent national parks. This gesture may seem a drop of water
by itself, but together with other efforts can go a long way
toward the making of an entire ocean.

-- Mehru Jaffer