“The greatest danger to our future is apathy.”

– Jane Goodall

Ihave a folder in my mailbox called “Feedback”, and since our last issue, the total number of mails I’ve received is one. It was a strongly-opinionated complaint about how we should not have anglicised Yip Man’s name to Ip Man.

But to me, a seemingly negative reaction is better than no reaction at all. It is precisely our indifference and apathy that would leave usa poor stewards of the world we live in. When we don’t care, we don’t do anything.

In this wildlife issue, we highlight the plight of endangered animals in Asia – the handsome proboscis monkey in Borneo, the under-nourished horses of Gili Islands, the blue and white Bali mynahs of Indonesia. These animals are fast-disappearing even as humans continue to “progress” and encroach into their territory.

In other sections, we remember Alfred Russel Wallace, a contemporary of Charles Darwin who developed his theory of natural selection from his travels in the Malay Archipelago. We speak to a Malaysian painter who seeks to preserve his natural surroundings through art, and we take a light-hearted study on monkeys in Asian fables.