Latest Indomalaya Stories

Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A new report by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) states that human development and global temperature rise is threatening one of the world’s most precious forest systems. The Bengali Forest is disappearing at a record pace and taking along with it, species that may be found nowhere else on Earth. Rapid deterioration of the mangrove forests in the Sundarbans has resulted in as much as 650 feet of coast disappearing in a...

Melting glaciers, forest fires, floods and landslides threaten Nepal’s people and wildlife Washington, D.C. (PRWEB) November 10, 2011 A five-year program to reduce the impacts of a changing climate and threats to biodiversity and local people in Nepal, called Hariyo Ban, was launched this week in Kathmandu. The program, funded by USAID, is being led by World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in partnership with a consortium of leading conservation organizations in Nepal – CARE, the...

A 7.5 magnitude earthquake that hit 48 miles west of South Pagai in the Mentawai islands late Monday touched off a tsunami that wiped out the coastal Indonesian village of Betu Monga, where many residents are missing and feared dead, officials said on Tuesday. "Of the 200 people living in that village, only 40 have been found. 160 are still missing, mostly women and children," Hardimansyah, an official with the regional branch of the Department of Fisheries, told Reuters by phone. "We have...

Indonesia may be looking at a catastrophe as a huge tsunami-generating earthquake is possibly expected to hit the city of Padang and the island of Sumatra.A warning was issued by a scientist who miraculously predicted the quake that hit Sumatra in 2005. The warning was issued in a letter to the journal Nature Geoscience.The peril comes from a relentless buildup of pressure over the last two centuries on a section of the Sunda Trench, one of the world's most notorious earthquake zones, which...

Extinction looms for amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds restricted to declining mangrove forestsMore than 40 percent of a sample of amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds that are restricted to mangrove ecosystems are globally threatened with extinction, according to an assessment published in the July/August issue of BioScience. The study, by David A. Luther of the University of Maryland and Russell Greenberg of the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, was based on an extensive...

Colugos (aka flying lemurs) "” the closest living relatives of primates most notable for their ability to glide from tree to tree over considerable distances "” are more diverse than had previously been believed, according to a new report published in the November 11th issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication.Primates are most familiarly represented by monkeys and apes, the group including humans.Scientists had recognized just two species of these enigmatic mammals, the Sunda...

Research led by the University of Leeds has discovered genetic evidence that overturns existing theories about human migration into Island Southeast Asia (covering the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysian Borneo) - taking the timeline back by nearly 10,000 years.Prevailing theory suggests that the present-day populations of Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) originate largely from a Neolithic expansion from Taiwan driven by rice agriculture about 4,000 years ago - the so-called "Out of...

By Bappa MajumdarKOLKATA, India (Reuters) - An intriguing love triangle set in the world's largest tiger reserve is being turned into a Bollywood film, in a rare celluloid adaptation of a best-selling Indian novel."The Hungry Tide" will be set in the United States, Cambodia and the Sunderbans mangrove forest along India's east coast, famous for its tigers and crocodiles and crisscrossed by hundreds of creeks and islands frequently hidden by tides.Bollywood has often adapted Western...

By Bappa Majumdar KOLKATA, India (Reuters) - An intriguing love triangle set in the world's largest tiger reserve is being turned into a Bollywood film, in a rare celluloid adaptation of a best-selling Indian novel. "The Hungry Tide" will be set in the United States, Cambodia and the Sunderbans mangrove forest along India's east coast, famous for its tigers and crocodiles and criss-crossed by hundreds of creeks and islands frequently hidden by tides. Bollywood has often adapted Western...