Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Biodiversity

I had been long time wanting to write this article

Recently there had been some reports of "new" species found in forests or seas around the globe

Here are photos of camouflaged animals
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/photos/camouflaged-animals-1323369509-slideshow/#crsl=%252Fphotos%252Fcamouflaged-animals-1323369509-slideshow%252Fcamouflaged-animals-photo-1323369385.html

We had been long heard of the biota of Madagascar, Galapagos, Australia, the savannah of Africa, Amazon, and Antartic in those like National Geographic, and similar channels in tv.

I have never known such of biodiversity in Colombia, and those around Mekong River.

In my middle school days, I learnt about Wallacea. It is named after Alfred Russell Wallace 
Many endangered species found like Komodo dragon, anoa, babirusa, and many of insects, lizards, flowers, reptiles, birds...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallacea
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Russel_Wallace

In Papua there also many species which are not found in other parts of Indonesian archipelago such as Matoa which is a bigger version of longan (buah mata kucing/lengkeng/ kelengkeng), has a specific fragrant, thicker, not as sweet as longan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longan
(i will need to search my archive of photos of Matoa)

The land of Borneo now facing a mass destruction of its rainforest. We had seen those damaged in Java and Sumatera. Local tribes eventually have to merge with migrant villagers, and they are often being cast aside from the societies.

We heard the stories of orangutan. They are indeed intelligent creatures.
I went to Sarawak in 2009. 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangutan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bornean_orangutan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNPSmo3nTNY&noredirect=1
http://savetheorangutan.org/splash.html

The locals (read: companies) clear the land with primitive method which is the cheapest way to do is to burn it down. It creates fogs blown away to the whole tiny red dot neighboring country. I wish the companies could deploy a much better and safer way to do so.

One way to help is to cut down the fried food intakes. Most of junk food chains use cooking oil. If 1 person cuts down those food intakes by 30%, multiply by 1 billion person in a year, I believe it would help stopping the expansion of palm oil plantation and the similar plantation which later processed into cooking oil (sunflower, canola, olive, etc).
I am not asking people to boycott the cooking oil totally.

Eventhough there is new technology such as air fryer which claimed cooking without oil, there are still more 1 billion people who could not afford to pay the electricity bills and the purchase of such home appliance.

By pace of global warming, will these species eventually silenced into extinction?

I wish I could visit these places from they are gone or before I die...

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