Riska Orpa Sari adds, “I know that the Dayak people want to live in peace with nature. We are the people of the forest. We do not make peace with people who destroy our home.”
[Jeffrey McNeely co-authored one version of this article]
Chapter 16
“MIRACLE RICE” UNWITTINGLY DESTROYS BALI’S CORAL REEFS
It seemed so simple and good; it turned out so complicated
TAMPAKSIRING, Bali, Indonesia
As in the Wizard of Oz, sometimes when you pull back the curtain the “miracle” is shown to have significant flaws.
I learned of one “naked emperor” situation when trying to figure out the link between the death of Bali’s coral reefs and so-called “miracle rice”.
The story starts as I wander around a postcard-beautiful paddy field in the center of Bali with my old friend Ida Bagus Gede Jika. Jika squats and examines emerald green rice stalks that he grows, just a few weeks from harvest. “This is ‘old’ rice,” he explains, referring to the traditional variety that pre-dates so-called “miracle rice”. “Doesn’t need pesticides.” Jika then points to a neighboring field of shorter rice stalks. “Those farmers are growing new rice,” he says, rubbing his fingers to indicate that big money is involved. “Uses plenty of chemicals.”
Had anyone bothered to ask him, Jika’s knowledge of traditional farming techniques could have helped stop the destruction of the oft-visited island’s coral reefs.
Today less than 5 percent of Bali’s reefs are healthy, according to a WWF-World Wide Fund for Nature study, down from approximately 32 percent healthy reefs in 1986.
One of the surprising causes of this coral reef destruction is the way the government tells farmers to grow rice, according to Ketut Sarjana Putra, a marine biologist with WWF.
The problem can be traced to the introduction of so-called “miracle rice”.
The International Rice Research Institute, IRRI, based in Los Banos, Philippines, argues that new “miracle rice” varieties are essential because rice production must increase by 60 percent in the next 20 years to meet the needs of an expanding global population.
Nevertheless, Stephen Lansing, of the University of Arizona, and I Wayan Alit Artha Wiguna, of Bali’s state-run agricultural research center, have discovered that much of the phosphorus and potassium Balinese farmers apply as fertilizers to grow miracle rice is not needed. The volcanic soil of Bali is naturally rich in many of the nutrients essential for rice growth.
Not only is the runoff of excess nutrients a waste of money, but nutrient enrichment is harmful to the reef environment.
How does that happen?
In a healthy environment corals capture single-celled algae, which produce food for the corals. If too many nutrients enter the water, the algae grow too fast and eventually suffocate the corals. Excessive nutrients can also cause toxic algal blooms, which can kill fish and make shellfish poisonous to eat. And finally, nutrient enrichment can stimulate the outbreak of crown of thorns starfish, which eat corals. A 1977 outbreak of these pests, directly linked to runoff of agricultural chemicals, destroyed many of the coral reefs in Bali Barat National Park.
Jika, who is responsible for managing the Balinese system of water sharing for some 3,000 hectares of paddy, says that he and his neighbors haven’t used chemical fertilizer for many years.
By contrast, the Indonesian government suggests that rice farmers apply 100 kilograms of fertilizer per hectare. Studies show that although this massive input in fertilizer has little impact on the size of the crop, farmers are nevertheless pushed to buy the chemicals. “The government loans money to farmers to buy chemical fertilizers,” Jika says. “It costs around US 50 cents a kilo. But we get fertilizer for free – cow manure and compost.”
In addition to needing expensive fertilizer, miracle rice requires chemical pesticides, which can have damaging downstream effects, according to Vithal Rajan, executive chairman of Swayam Krishi Sangam, a non-governmental organisation which promotes micro-credit and environmentally-sustainable agriculture in arid regions of India. Rajan notes “farmers growing miracle rice use a cocktail of pesticides, many of which are banned in the West, in a desperate attempt to save their crops from pest attacks to which the crop is susceptible. Natural predators, such as spiders and birds, are killed by chemicals.”
The pesticide-soaked fields of rice can create an immediate health hazard for subsistence farmers, Rajan notes. In Karnataka State some years ago poor rice farmers eating the crabs living in such pesticide-soaked waters “suffered from a strange new disease, which had a crippling effect on their bodies that made even teenagers look like very old people,” he says. Because the disease attacked the disenfranchised poor “no one bothered to do a lot of medical research on how the pesticide had been ingested; or how it had crippled them.”
Jules Pretty, from the University of Essex in the UK, adds another problem that results from an excess of pesticides. It was once common practice to grow fish in paddy fields, he notes, thereby providing farmers with a rich source of protein and vitamins. But Pretty noted that with the onset of the Green Revolution the chemical load in the water destroyed any chance of fish surviving.
Jika and his neighbors refuse to use chemical pesticides. They get rid of pests “the same way Balinese farmers got rid of pests before the agricultural experts came along,” Jika says, a mischievous smile on his round, open face. “In a natural system birds, spiders and dragonflies eat insect pests. And snakes eat the mice that attack the roots of the plant.”
This idea of natural-pest control is spreading. “Farmer field schools” in Bangladesh have emphasised ecologically-sustainable pest control; Bangladeshi farmers who have stopped using pesticides have seen rice yields actually increase by 5–7 percent, while the costs of production have fallen as much as 80 percent.
The International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines, commonly referred to as IRRI, was responsible for developing in 1966 a rice variety called IR8, dubbed miracle rice, which was a key element in the Green Revolution. “Yields increased considerably, so long as IR8 was grown with its costly associated package of artificial fertilisers, pesticides and timely irrigation,” notes Seedling, a publication of Genetic Resources Action International. “But IR8 was tasteless and highly susceptible to pests and diseases.” IR8 was followed by a series of new varieties including IR36, the world’s most widely grown rice. “For the same yield as ten years ago, farmers now have to use as much as five times more fertiliser,” Seedling notes.
Regardless of the risks to the environment, the agricultural engineers remain active. The world obviously needs food, and lots of it.
Several years ago IRRI introduced a “super rice” that was predicted to increase rice yields by 25–50 percent. A new variety called IR72 is engineered with a gene called XA21 to resist the common rice disease bacterial blight (Xanthomonas oryzae). Other breeders have genetically-engineered rice that produces beta-carotone, the precursor of vitamin A. It is hoped that this variety, dubbed ‘golden rice’ because of its yellow colour, will reduce vitamin A deficiency, which affects some 250 million people, mainly small children and pregnant women.
These new rice varieties sometimes sound great on paper but disappoint in practice.
Pedrin Pangan, a farmer in the Philippines town of Calauan, recalls the time when IRRI introduced miracle rice. “We planted IR8 and threw away our traditional seeds,” he remembers. “We had a good first harvest, after that we harvested almost nothing.”
Tom Juntti, writing in the Environmental News Service, notes “IR8 caused the proliferation of the deadly pest brown planthopper which was the carrier of the deadly rice disease tungro. This illustrates that bioengineers can’t think of everything when developing a new ‘product.’” Juntti notes a concern shared by many conservationists: “If the traditional seed source is lost, it may not be possible to breed for corrections to this problem.”
Jika admits that “new” rice grows faster, so you c
an produce more rice in a year, and is easier to thresh.
But he ticks off the numerous benefits he sees in growing “traditional” rice. He points out that “old” rice stores better, naturally resists pests, isn’t as sensitive to drought, is worth more when it’s sold, and tastes better. “When my wife is cooking ‘old’ rice you can smell the nice aroma from 200 meters away.”
Chapter 17
LONGHOUSE COMMUNITIES IN BORNEO HOPE VISITORS WILL FLOCK TO “WATER RIVER” NATIONAL PARK
New conservation approach involves local people in park management
BATANG AI, Sarawak, Malaysia
Griffin anak Andin is studying business tactics, Kaya anak Lajan is working on his English, and their friends have learned how to treat broken bones. Iban tribesmen from seven longhouse communities in Sarawak are gearing up for a tourist surge they hope will come to the Batang Ai National Park near their homes.
The Iban, who make up almost a third of the population of Sarawak, one of two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo, are at the center of an experimental trend in nature conservation that seeks to involve local people in national park management and benefits.
The concept of community participation evolved because conservation officials recognize that many national parks worldwide fail because the people are alienated from what they consider to be their traditional territories. In most countries the central government’s method of protecting nature is to put up a fence to keep animals in and people out.
When the Batang Ai National Park was first proposed the local people initially opposed the project. “Where will we hunt and fish?” the villagers asked, needlessly fearful they would be forbidden entry to the protected area. “Will we be forbidden to grow rice on our traditional lands?”
The Sarawak government, which has been criticized for its handling of tribal people, in this case worked with WWF-World Wide Fund for Nature and WCI-Wildlife Conservation International to see how they might integrate people’s basic needs with the objectives of saving forests and rivers. One strategy was to substitute a carrot for the stick, by giving the people of Batang Ai a chance to make money from tourism in the park.
This sounds admirable, but, as I learned when I visited the region, there may be some bumps along the way.
For a start, it might be unrealistic to expect large numbers of tourists. The park is isolated, and while parts of it are attractive, Batang Ai has little of the primary rainforest visitors want to see. It also lacks easily viewable wildlife – to see the orangutan, which is the greatest attraction, one must walk at least several hours, and even then a sighting is not guaranteed.
Melvin Gumal, an executive forester in the Sarawak Forest Department and a WWF-World Wide Fund for Nature project executant who helped develop the Batang Ai concept, recognizes that the conservationists had better be careful about building up unrealistic expectations for quick riches among local people. “This project isn’t a one or two year thing,” he says.
While Gumal is concerned that by encouraging people to move too quickly towards a largely cash-based economy the society may be disrupted, he notes that the best chance the government may have of creating a community-supported national park is by offering financial incentives.
Batang Ai is not that isolated, however, and a cash economy arrived years ago in which local people sell fish and forest products, and work as laborers to earn money with which to buy outboard engines, fuel and basic provisions. Yet the Batang Ai life style is relatively (some tourists might say refreshingly) unchanged from centuries past, partly because of the isolation created by the difficulty to travel up the rapids-filled rivers.
Another factor in the tourism equation is that Hilton has entered into an agreement to manage the 100 room Batang Ai Longhouse Resort, located an hour by boat downriver from the park boundary. The recently opened hotel is located on the shores of the Batang Ai reservoir, created when the Sarawak Electricity Supply Corporation constructed a large dam on the Batang Ai river (which means “water river” in Iban). Some Iban are hopeful of finding jobs at the resort, but perhaps should be warned that they may lack specialized hotel skills and therefore might be relegated to menial positions.
Thoughts of hotel management were far away as I trekked three hours upriver from Rumah Griffin through old secondry forest, fording clear streams and scrambling up muddy ridges in order to catch a glimpse of an orangutan mother and infant. Batang Ai is home to Sarawak’s largest population of the red apes, which are found only on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. I watched my primate cousins for half an hour, fascinated, as I always am, at the emotional connection between people and the great apes. The mother got bored before I did, and climbed out of sight. On the way back I scrambled down the wooded slopes to bathe in sparkling waterfalls, surrounded by butterflies. I was far beyond the last human habitation. Far from language lessons and courses in “basic business principles”. Perhaps the attractions I found so delightful will similarly attract at least a few intrepid tourists. Better brush up on the English, Kaya. But don’t quit your day job.
Chapter 18
NEW SPECIES CAUSE GROWN MEN TO “TREMBLE WITH EXCITEMENT”
Discovery of the coelacanth in Sulawesi, and why some scientists go red when they find something new
MANADO, Indonesia
It’s hard to imagine what will stir a man’s soul.
For some it’s a sports victory, for others a romantic encounter.
For Mark Erdman it was a large, ugly fish that oughtn’t to have been where it was.
En route to his date with unexpected passion, Mark Erdman made one of the biggest scientific blunders imaginable. He held an important new species in his hand and let it get away.
Erdman, 33, an American marine biologist working to develop marine protected areas in the northern part of Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, stumbled on one of the biggest prizes in marine biology, a coelacanth, a rare fish a continent away from where it was thought to belong.
The coelacanth (“SEE-la-kanth”) is an ancient fish sometimes dubbed the “dinofish” because it was known only by fossil records and assumed to have gone extinct some 70 million years ago, about the same time the dinosaurs disappeared. When a fisherman caught a coelacanth in 1938, in the Indian Ocean north of Madagascar, the scientific world was stunned.
Just days after their wedding in September 1997, Mark and his wife Arnaz took four friends to the fish market in Manado, a city in northern Sulawesi which served as their base. “We stepped out of the taxi and an old guy pushed a cart past us that contained a large fish,” Erdman recalls.
“My wife said ‘what in the world is that?’ I recognized it as a coelacanth. Manado’s a city of one million; it was like finding a dinosaur in Central Park. The fisherman didn’t speak much Indonesian and he seemed uncomfortable, so I just took some photos and we each went our separate ways. It just didn’t seem feasible, and I figured if it really was a coelacanth we’d find another. Anyway, we didn’t feel like dealing with a four-foot smelly fish in our hotel room.”
Several days later, on the plane journey back to the States, Erdman remarked to his wife that “maybe we should have bought that fish.” He admits now: “I was biggest bonehead ever.”
Erdman’s friends put the coelacanth photo on the website they had created to share images of the wedding. “Within five hours someone called and said ‘get that coelacanth photo off the web before anyone else sees it’.” Erdman saw the wisdom of not publicizing the discovery until conservation measures had been put in place to protect the rare creature. And anyway, the only proof he had was a photo. “Some other scientists called it a ‘honeymoon hoax’”, Erdman says.
Erdman put out the word in the Manado fish market that he wanted to buy a coelacanth, and some ten months later a fisherman called Erdman and sold him a coelacanth, which they call “Rajah Laut” (King of the Sea), for around US$70. (In November 1999, exploring in a small submarine, Erdman and his colleagues found two more coelacanths in a
volcanic cave on a steep rock face at a depth of 150 meters, similar habitat to where the African specimens were found.)
Erdman sent the large fish, twice the length of a man’s arm, to colleagues to verify it was, indeed, a coelacanth, but still didn’t publish his discovery. Instead Erdman briefed top Indonesian officials, setting in place conservation measures that began when the discovery was published in the journal Nature.
Erdman’s fish turned to be a different species to the African variety, Latimeria chalumnae. He named it Latimeria menadoensis. The two coelacanths are morphologically similar, but differ genetically by five million years. He explained these fish are called “old fore legs” because of their characteristic dorsal fins. The coelacanths, which first appeared some 400 million years ago, branched off from the “normal” ray-finned fish at an early period. “Some people think they’re precursors, along with lungfish, of sea animals that eventually became terrestrial,” he says.
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