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