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Photographer Riza Marlon launches a book on Indonesia’s endemic species
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A Spectral Tarsier, Tarsius spectrum, is spotted in Tangkoko National Park, North Sulawesi, in a large ficus tree. (Shutterstock/Ondrej Prosicky)
R
iza Marlon - a photographer with a keen interest in the wilderness - launched his third book titled Wallace’s Living Legacy, at the auditorium of the National Library on Wednesday.
The book features more than 200 photos of animals, all endemic to the islands of Wallacea that comprise Sulawesi, Lombok, Sumbawa, Flores, Sumba, Timor, Halmahera, Buru, Seram and many smaller islands.
Tempo.co reported that the photos in the book are categorized according to their classes and genus, portraying such animals from birds, insects, reptiles and mammals. Each photo is accompanied with informative text in a popular science format.
In his book, Riza began with introducing Alfred Russel Wallace, a British naturalist and explorer who identified the faunal divide now termed the Wallace Line. It is a line that separates the Indonesian archipelago into two parts, where the west is inhabited by animals mostly of Asian origin, and the east Australasian.
According to Tempo.co, Riza went to 22 different locations within the islands of Wallacea in seven years. Capturing an image of an animal in a location might require him to return to a spot up to four times for the best result.
Riza admitted that working on the book had cost him a great amount of time, money and energy. Yet he sees that there is not much documentation of Indonesia’s wild animals, therefore he was determined to fill the empty space.
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He wishes that Wallace’s Living Legacy would be able to move Indonesians to further appreciate the richness of the archipelago. Furthermore, Riza hopes to inspire fellow photographers to document Indonesia’s wild animals. (mut)
