Scenes From Indonesia

Scenes From Indonesia


Ecologically blessed, economically challenged, vast and diverse,
Indonesia is a country of contrasts. made up of 17,500 islands (only
about 6,000 of those inhabited). Indonesia is populated by over 230
million people, speaking over 740 different languages and dialects
within 300 distinct native ethnic groups - it is the fourth most
populous country, after the United States. Impoverished conditions
amongst people living in an area so rich with natural resources has
also put extreme pressure on the environment, as increased mining and
deforestation make more of an impact. Collected here are only a handful
of photographs from Indonesia over the past several months - again,
it's impossible to sum up such a diverse subject in a single collection













An elephant keeper collects food for the elephants at the Elephant
Conservation Centre in Way Kambas National Park on Indonesia's Sumatra
Island January 25, 2009. Since 1998, 22 elephants were born at Way
Kambas Elephant Conservation Centre. Sumatran elephants, the smallest
of all Asian elephants, are facing serious pressures arising from
illegal logging and associated habitat loss and fragmentation in
Indonesia, said Conservation Centre authorities
















Indonesian students wait for their turn to view an annular solar eclipse in Bandar Lampung, Indonesia Lampung province













A worker carries containers of crude oil to be processed into fuel at a
well on December 22, 2008 in Bojonegoro, Indonesia. Crude oil mining is
undertaken in what is known as the "eternal oil fields" using
traditional methods and simple equipment. '''













Crude oil sprays from a well bucket as a result of mining processes on
December 22, 2008 in Bojonegoro, Indonesia. The "eternal oil field"
reserves were rediscovered here, just over 100km from Surabaya in 2005,
although the 210 wells date back to Dutch colonial times.













A worker attempts to extinguish a flame at the source of an oil well
'












A worker inspects crude oil resulting from mining processes at a well
December 23, 2008 in Bojonegoro, Indonesia. The 2005 rediscovery of
these fields was the biggest in Indonesia in three decades, and remains
one of the biggest oil reserves in Indonesia.





A mine worker takes part in the extraction of crude oil from a well on December 23, 2008 in Bojonegoro, Indonesia.






Distilled diesel oil pours in to a tank as it waits for the sale to a
distributor December 22, 2008 in Bojonegoro, Indonesia.. These fields
are mined jointly by the state oil company Pertamina and a subsidiary
of ExxonMobil. Fields such as those at Banyu Urip alone produce up to
170,000 barrels per day, accounting for 20 percent of Indonesia's crude
oil production.