Tag: asia

From a hillside overlooking Lake Toba, the vast volcanic basin at the heart of Sumatra, Wilmar Eliaser Simandjorang looks down on what he calls both a blessing and a warning, reports Sri Wahyuni. 

Once the first district leader of Samosir, Wilmar has spent his retirement rewilding parts of this landscape sacred to the Batak people. “If we don’t pay attention to this, Lake Toba will be just a memory,” he said.

That memory is fading fast. Pollution, logging, and unchecked plantations have clouded the waters of what was once among Indonesia’s purest lakes. “The forest is being cut down, both legally and illegally—biodiversity is being burned,” Wilmar said. “Rainwater is just running off; it carries ash, trash and pesticides into the lake.” Research published in 2024 confirmed nitrogen levels above national safety thresholds, threatening fish and water quality.

The deterioration stings for those who remember when people would ask travelers to bring back a flask of Toba’s crystal water. “Now? Just cooking rice with it will smell,” Wilmar said. He has watched the district lose nearly a quarter of its old-growth forest since 2002. Yet he persists, planting trees, urging families to blend fruit and forest crops, and teaching children to see trees, birds, and soil as kin. “I believe forests will be sustainable if people feel they are part of their lives,” he said.

His modest crusade has taken place as larger institutions stir. This year the Batak Protestant Christian Church, Indonesia’s biggest, called for the closure of PT Toba Pulp Lestari, the dominant plantation company blamed for decades of conflict and ecological damage. “The most painful fact is that the presence of PT TPL has triggered various social and ecological crises,” declared the Reverend Victor Tinambunan. The firm denies wrongdoing.

Fires have since scorched 16 hectares of land Wilmar spent years re-greening. “The land I turned green, which was just starting to show results, went up just like that,” he said. Yet he continues to plant and to preach renewal, even after threats from illegal loggers and indifference from officials. His faith, rooted in duty rather than reward, remains unshaken. “We can turn this destruction into hope,” Wilmar said. “But it takes will, knowledge, and love.”

The long-tailed macaque has lost a battle for its survival—but won one for scientific integrity. In early October the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reaffirmed the species’ endangered status, rejecting an appeal by the U.S. National Association for Biomedical Research (NABR). The lobby group had argued that the listing impeded vaccine and drug development, since laboratories rely heavily on macaques for testing.

The IUCN first elevated Macaca fascicularis from vulnerable to endangered in 2022, after evidence emerged that wild monkeys were being laundered into “captive-breeding” farms across Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Its latest review found that wild populations have fallen by as much as 70% over the past three decades.

“I’m happy to see science prevail, but I’m not happy to see the long-tailed macaques endangered,” said Malene Friis Hansen of Aarhus University, a co-author of the assessment. “That we’ve pushed such an adaptive synanthrope to this stage should be an eye-opener.”

The COVID-19 pandemic intensified demand. When China halted exports in 2020, Cambodia’s shipments nearly doubled. Reports soon surfaced that supposed captive-bred macaques were, in fact, trapped in the wild and funneled through state-linked farms. American prosecutors later alleged Cambodian officials’ complicity in the trade, though few have faced consequences. The industry, meanwhile, has prospered: wild monkeys can fetch a few hundred dollars, while laboratory buyers pay tens of thousands.

The NABR insists the IUCN’s process was tainted by “emotive” language and conflicts of interest, allegations the conservation body dismissed after an internal inquiry. It has pledged to “educate policymakers” about what it calls an overreach of environmental science. Yet Hansen asks a sharper question: “If these companies claim they’re only using captive-bred monkeys, then why are they so concerned about the IUCN listing?”

Beyond laboratories, macaques suffer from the pet trade and from viral social-media cruelty videos, where abuse is monetized for clicks. Habitat loss and persecution complete the toll. The species’ apparent abundance at tourist sites masks its disappearance from the forests it once dominated. For a primate known for its adaptability, that may be the cruelest irony of all.

In 2012 Sri Lanka’s National Red List pronounced the towering dipterocarp Doona ovalifolia “extinct in the wild.” Known locally as Pini-Beraliya, the species lingered only as a single cultivated specimen in the Royal Botanic Gardens at Peradeniya. For years that lone tree stood as a melancholy reminder of what had been lost.

Its unlikely revival began in 2018, when a Facebook post in a medicinal plant group prompted a villager from Ratnapura district to declare, “We have this tree in our village.” At first, botanists doubted the claim; related species are easily confused. But photographs of the leaves raised eyebrows, and when flowers were eventually obtained by a daring tree climb, experts confirmed the identification.

Since then, two more wild populations have been found, all near rivers or streams, reports Malaka Rodrigo. Conservationists have moved swiftly. Dilmah Conservation established a nursery that has already raised more than 250 saplings. Schoolchildren in Ayagama were given seedlings to plant, turning conservation into a lesson in pride and stewardship.

Ecologists argue that saving Pini-Beraliya is about more than preserving a single species. As a keystone of Sri Lanka’s lowland rainforests, its return bolsters entire ecosystems. From near oblivion, a chance rediscovery has restored both trees and hope.

In December 2024, a camera trap deep in Assam’s Dehing Patkai National Park recorded something never before seen: a clouded leopard carrying a Bengal slow loris in its jaws. The image, shared widely on social media by Assam’s Forest Minister, made waves in conservation circles—and not just for its novelty. It provides the first photographic evidence of this predator-prey interaction, offering vital insights into the diet of a notoriously elusive cat, reports Nabarun Guha.

Both species are nocturnal and arboreal, rendering direct observation almost impossible. “This finding contributes to our understanding of predatory behavior and diet,” said Bilal Habib of the Wildlife Institute of India, which led the study. Clouded leopards are believed to prey on a wide range of animals, but hard data in the Indian context has been sparse.

Dehing Patkai is India’s only protected area known to shelter eight wild cat species. That a single photo captured two of its shyest residents highlights the park’s ecological richness—and the importance of ongoing conservation efforts. As forests shrink and threats rise, such glimpses into the lives of hidden species become both rarer and more crucial.