THE diesel generator on Pulau Hoga in the district of Wakatobi, Southeast Sulawesi, is started each day at 5am. Its the time that dozens of American and European researchers and university students on the island begin their activities with the single purpose of helping to preserve the wealth of nature which astounded English naturalist Alfred Russell Wallace when he visited Sulawesi in 1854.

Wallace, who sailed east of Sulawesi, was impressed by a