Word: sumatra
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...meant extinction was nigh for myriad species, among them Van Schaik's orangutans. Environmentalists once said the apes might be extinct in a matter of decades; their increasingly frantic warnings now spoke of just years. Orangutans need virgin forest, and even senior officials acknowledged that all virgin forest in Sumatra would probably be gone in five years. The last primary forest on neighboring Borneo would disappear in a decade, predicted Walhi, the country's leading environmental group...
...great apes were driven to extinction, as now seemed likely, that would mean more than the tragic passing of another of God's creatures, it would also mean losing some potential understanding of ourselves. For 25 years, the Duke University primatologist had been chasing orangutans through the swamps of Sumatra. Now he was starting to achieve startling new insights into some of our most fundamental questions: What made us men and not monkeys? When precisely did that divergence occur? And, even more intriguing, what lit the spark of learning and shared knowledge that eventually became mankind's bonfire of culture...
...interfering in Japanese affairs by showing the Yanks that Japan was a force. He hoped a quick victory in Hawaii would prompt the U.S. to petition for peace in the Pacific, which would allow expansionist Japan, already on the move in China, to pursue oil and other supplies in Sumatra, Borneo and Java. Japan felt it was under a tight deadline for invading those places. When it leapt, it did not want America butting...
...million inhabitants of West Sumatra, this means a return to a traditional system known as nagari (Sanskrit for country). The province's 3,612 villages, as carved up by Suharto, have been merged into 543 nagari areas. Election of nagari officials is already underway and should be completed this year...
...lush rice fields and farmlands of West Sumatra the experiment is looking extremely bright. Seventy-year-old Masrun, from the town of Sungai Kamuyang, tends to cassava, cloves and ginger. In 1968, the 130-hectare plot where he farms was transferred from local nagari leaders to a private company in a deal locals say was unfair. Masrun went from being a modest stakeholder to a day laborer earning, until recently, 15 a day. Several months ago, the revived nagari council decided to take back the land, and the private firm agreed to give it up. Masrun, with a toothless smile...