SUKABUMI, Indonesia: With her trusty walking cane in hand and a backpack filled with ripe bananas, Tini Kasmawati trudged through the slippery, mud-caked paths of a dwindling forest near her village, unfazed by the drizzling rain, frigid morning air and most of all: Her deteriorating vision.
The silvery gibbons are territorial and rarely venture out of their respective areas, unless to find a suitable partner with which they mate for life. Over the years, the gibbons near Lengkong village went from a family of four to one of eight. Two of the offsprings had even started families of their own and subsequently moved to other areas around the village.In 2016, damage to her nervous system caused Kasmawati to slowly lose her vision. Her left eye is now completely blind while vision on her right has since reduced to less than 30 per cent.
At the time, Kasmawati did not think much about the environmental destruction happening in her backyard. “I liked watching the gibbons. I liked the wilderness. But I was not passionate about them,” she said. A family of silvery gibbons in the forest of Sukabumi, Indonesia. Scientists estimated that there are only 2,000 of the endangered species left in the wild.
“I somehow failed to see a big hole that was sitting right in front of me. One of the researchers asked: ‘How could you not see that hole?’ I also asked myself the same question,” she said. But she still struggles to see after dark while any object further than an arm's length appears nothing more than blurry shapes. Furthermore, her eyesight is slowly getting worse.
Singapore Latest News, Singapore Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: straits_times - 🏆 5. / 69 Read more »
Source: straits_times - 🏆 5. / 69 Read more »
Source: thenewpaper - 🏆 7. / 63 Read more »
Source: asiaonecom - 🏆 10. / 59 Read more »
Source: TODAYonline - 🏆 1. / 99 Read more »
Source: ChannelNewsAsia - 🏆 6. / 66 Read more »