Nature the great educator

Although few participants of the recent trek on the Ailao Mountains (Ailaoshan) managed to hear the western black-crested gibbons' duets, no one seemed to regret taking part.

It was the first time Benjamin Rawson had trekked through a forest in China. The Australian primate researcher, who lives in Vietnam as FFI's Indo-Burma primate conservation program manager, was surprised by Ailaoshan forest's "good condition".

"Here I saw almost no trace of human activity - no signs of logging and poaching," he says. "It is quite different to the reserves I visited in Vietnam."