Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
trees provide rich resources for the orangutans and other animals that live
in the high canopy.
The forests of Southeast Asia are magical places. Often the trees fl ower
all at once, a phenomenon called masting that is triggered by just the right
combination of temperature and moisture. After this massive explosion of
fl owers in the forest's upper canopy, the seeds mature. The Dipterocarp pods
split into halves and shower down to the forest fl oor far below like swarms
of tiny helicopters—hence the name Dipterocarp, which means two-winged
fruit. This synchronization overwhelms with its sheer abundance the ani-
mals that eat the seeds.
The small groups of fi shermen and hunters who were the vanguard of
the Great Migration encountered many animals in these forests. The small
Sumatran rhinoceros and the Sumatran tiger, both now almost extinct, were
the most dangerous. Great troops of langur and proboscis monkeys, gibbons,
and macaques swung through the trees. Orangutans ranged widely through
the forests, leading their solitary lives high in the canopies. Wreathed and
rhinoceros hornbills fl ew overhead, their wings sounding like the thrum of
helicopter blades. And of course the swarms of smaller life, from birds to
insects, made the forests vibrate with noise and activity.
The environment that these adventurous migrants stumbled into was
more varied than a featureless wall of rainforest. In the early nineteenth cen-
tury extensive rainforest covered 90% of peninsular Malaysia, but it probably
covered less than half of that during the maxima of the ice ages when there
were alternating wet and dry seasons instead of the year-round rains of the
present time. The drier forests of the ice ages were interspersed with open
grassland and areas of low shrubs. This open country must have given the
early hunters many opportunities to track down the abundant tapirs and
pigs.
The fi rst human hunters who arrived in this dangerous but abundant
Eden found what seemed to be infi nite resources. And their descendants are
still exploiting them. The forest people of Malaysia continue to hunt inten-
sively, as they have for tens of thousands of years, even though the rainfor-
ests are sadly diminished in extent and most of their animals have already
been killed.
