Indonesia is cradled by soaring peaks and conical volcanoes, the flatlands between given over almost entirely to rice cultivation. For with more than 235 million people to feed, Indonesia’s farmers are pushed to exploit every single square centimeter of land. On the island of Java, the world’s most populous island with 125 million people, the landscape is so heavily sculpted by man, that it’s hard to find a natural feature.
Here man is master of the environment. Rice cultivation, one of the world’s most intensive forms of agriculture, harnesses a confluence of natural forces: the mud that shapes the paddy field and provides organic sustenance; the water than sluices through using gravity as a manager; and the sturdy water buffalo whose feet weigh just enough to preserve the hard pan of mud that holds the water in the paddy field. Then there is the patient farmer, wading the field in a months-long cycle that begins with the planting of green leafy shoots and culminates in the harvest of the yellowed grain stalks. Bent over double, mostly under a scorching sun, there are few occupations anywhere that involve so much manual toil and yet are so critical to man’s survival.
Nature, like everything else in Indonesia is colorful and complex. Indonesia’s wildlife can be divided into two distinct regions. The British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace first postulated that there was an imaginary dividing line between Asiatic and Australian fauna. Named after him, the Wallace Line passes between Bali and Lombok islands at its southern end and runs northward from here between Kalimantan and Sula-wesi. It then curves to the east along the southern edge of the Philippines.
The planting of tender green rice shoots in a previously plowed and flooded field is painstaking work.
A fierce looking Komodo dragon. Their jaws are alive with bacteria that infect the slightest wound inflicted by the lizard's sharp teeth—and they will attack humans if they smell them nearby.
The vast jungles of South Kalimantan. Indonesia's tropical forests, though fast disappearing, are a valuable biological resource.
Along this line Wallace observed a major break in fauna based on his observations of birds, especially of parrots, throughout the islands in the area. Wallace was puzzled by the fact that Asian birds thrived on the island of Bali, while just 25 kilometers (15 miles) across a narrow strait, the island of Lombok was missing some prominent Asian species. The birds on Lombok were more clearly related to those of New Guinea and Australia than those of Bali. He marked the channel between Bali and Lombok as the divide between two great zoogeographic regions, the Oriental and the Australian. The line also acts as a barrier to Asian species of freshwater fish and large mammals, which cannot be found east of the Wallace Line. It is certainly striking to be traveling in the far-flung eastern province of Papua and come across kangaroos and gum trees.
However, there are many species indigenous to Indonesia, like the “orangutan” (which literally means “man of the jungle” in Indonesian) apes of Sumatra and Kalimantan and the giant “dragon” lizards, which are the only giant reptiles of their kind in the world today roaming free on the island of Komodo. This throwback to the dinosaur age is protected within a heavily guarded national park. Similarly, the one-horned rhinoceros of Java, the wild “banteng” oxen, tigers and many other species are now protected in wildlife reserves.
Indonesia is also home to some of the largest stands of primary tropical rainforest in Asia, and therefore is an important repository of the region’s biodiversity. Indonesia’s natural beauty makes it a feast for the eyes, and yet what is truly remarkable is how closely man and nature interact in a landscape constantly moulded by man. Perhaps the best-known man-made features are the intricate rice terraces of Java and Bali. Built along the contours of this volcanic landscape, they offer the most efficient way to exploit the land and yet somehow lend more beauty to the scenery. Close up the visitor can wander along the grassy mud-built bunds that rim the terraces and feast one’s eyes upon the fluorescent colors of the ripening rice, whilst listening to the relaxing sound of gurgling water as it drains from one terrace to the next. There are few man-made or natural landscapes as pleasing or as friendly to the senses.
The Indonesian archipelago has collected people like a giant colander, as waves of itinerant mariners, passing traders and refugees, invaders and migrants have over the ages passed through or across the seas between these islands. The earliest Indonesians were some of man’s earliest forbears. Fossils of “Java Man” (Pithecanthropus Erectus) dating back some 500,000 years, were first discovered in Central Java, suggesting that some of man’s earliest ancestors inhabited the island of Java. The “original” human inhabitants of these islands were black-skinned relatives of the Australian aborigines and present-day Papuans. Later migrations to the Indonesian archipelago have been traced as far back as 3,000–500 B.C. They were lighter-skinned peoples from what is now southern China who arrived by boat via Taiwan and the Philippines and have been credited with introducing to the region new Stone, Bronze and Iron Age cultures as well as the Austronesian languages and rice agriculture. Recent discoveries on the island of Flores have uncovered evidence of an early humanoid species (Homo floresiensis) that stood no taller than 90 centimeters (three feet) high.
The elephant “school” in Lampung, South Sumatra, where elephants are trained to extract timber.
An orangutan observes life from a tree in Gunung Lawang, South Sumatra; these gentle primates are now protected by law.
The contrast of light and dark that haunts many Balinese paintings is seen here in stark reality near Ubud.
A farmer stops to rest on the edge of his rice field in Ubud, Bali. Rice cultivation is a labor-intensive task and there is seldom time for idleness.
Rice terraces in Payangan above Ubud, Bali.
Classical dancers from the ancient palace or kraton in Yogyakarta. Children are taught classical dance from an early age in Central Java—a part of their heritage that reaches back into the pre-Islamic Hindu past.
A Sumatran beauty dressed in wedding finery. West Sumatran women own all landed property in one of the world's only surviving matrilineal societies.
A Buginese girl from South Sulawesi wearing her traditional costume. These proud sea-faring people produce delicate works of filigree and bold textile designs. Their looks are deceiving; fine featured but tough and aggressive. As migrants all over Indonesia they make formidable commercial competitors.
A Balinese temple dancer made up for a performance. Hindu religious ritual and devotion is the source of this island's expressive culture of dance,
