For many Javanese Indonesians, bird-keeping is in their DNA. A long-held tradition, the popular pastime has spread beyond Java as natives of the island were relocated to less densely populated islands in the country under the Indonesian government’s transmigration program.

Maksum, a resident of Aceh Tamiang district in northern Sumatra, Indonesia, can still vividly recall when a flash flood hit the area 11 years ago this month.The 2006 disaster left a trail of destruction in its wake, claiming the lives of 28 people and forcing more than 200,000 from their homes.Today, he is increasingly concerned that a similar catastrophe looms on the horizon – one driven not by natural forces, but by a massive hydroelectric power plant planned for construction here.The 428-m

The "Panthera tigris sumatrae" better known as the Sumatran tiger has been driven to the brink of extinction by a combination of factors. Since the 1980s, it has been suffering a severe loss of habitat due factors such as the continuous cultivation and harvesting of palm oil and timber estates as well as wildlife trafficking. Such is the rate of its decline that its population is estimated to be numbered less than 600 in existent in the wild.

The Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis) that was officially announced by an international team of scientists early this month – is already an endangered species.With 800 or fewer individuals, the Tapanuli orangutan is the rarest of all great apes.

While the Sumatran rhino, Dicerorhinus sumatrensis, once roamed the foothills of the eastern Himalayas in Bhutan and India, through Myanmar, Thailand, possibly to Vietnam and China, and south through the Malay Peninsula, the species in now found in diminutive populations on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia.These scattered populations are mainly confined to Gunung Leuser, Kerinci-Seblat and Bukit Barisan Selatan National Parks.

A new species of orangutan has been discovered in the remote jungles of Indonesia, immediately becoming the world's most endangered great ape, researchers said Thursday."It's the first declaration of a new great ape species in about 100 years," Ian Singleton, co-author of the study and director of the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme, told AFP.