Where do Little lizards make big money for villagers?”
By Heru Asprihanto Heru Asprihanto – Tue Jan 19, 12:18 pm ET JAKARTA (Reuters) – A tiny Indonesian lizard has become big business for impoverished villagers in Indonesia, where growing Asian demand for reptile-based traditional medicines has driven a boom in gecko farming. Geckos — the pale, soft-skinned lizard with a distinctive call — are abundant in Indonesia and are believed by Chinese and Korean traditional medicine devotees to help cure cancer as well as skin and respiratory diseases. In rural Banjarsawah village, on the eastern half of Java island, struggling farmers have discovered geckos make a surprisingly lucrative commodity. Tohasyim, 32, a farmhand who earns 10,000 rupiah (about $1) a day feeding other people’s cattle, now makes 1 million rupiah or about $110 a month hunting geckos in a local forest. “I start hunting the geckos in the evening after I finish my job, feeding other people’s cattle. I normally start hunting the geckos at 6 in the evening until 5 in the morni
A tiny Indonesian lizard has become big business for impoverished villagers in Indonesia, where growing Asian demand for reptile-based traditional medicines has driven a boom in gecko farming. Geckos — the pale, soft-skinned lizard with a distinctive call — are abundant in Indonesia and are believed by Chinese and Korean traditional medicine devotees to help cure cancer as well as skin and respiratory diseases. In rural Banjarsawah village, on the eastern half of Java island, struggling farmers have discovered geckos make a surprisingly lucrative commodity. Tohasyim, 32, a farmhand who earns 10,000 rupiah (about $1) a day feeding other people’s cattle, now makes 1 million rupiah or about $110 a month hunting geckos in a local forest. “I start hunting the geckos in the evening after I finish my job, feeding other people’s cattle. I normally start hunting the geckos at 6 in the evening until 5 in the morning,” said Tohasyim, who, like many Indonesians, has only one name. The industry b
A tiny Indonesian lizard has become big business for impoverished villagers in Indonesia, where growing Asian demand for reptile-based traditional medicines has driven a boom in gecko farming. Geckos — the pale, soft-skinned lizard with a distinctive call — are abundant in Indonesia and are believed by Chinese and Korean traditional medicine devotees to help cure cancer as well as skin and respiratory diseases. In rural Banjarsawah village, on the eastern half of Java island, struggling farmers have discovered geckos make a surprisingly lucrative commodity. Tohasyim, 32, a farmhand who earns 10,000 rupiah (about $1) a day feeding other people’s cattle, now makes 1 million rupiah or about $110 a month hunting geckos in a local forest. “I start hunting the geckos in the evening after I finish my job, feeding other people’s cattle. I normally start hunting the geckos at 6 in the evening until 5 in the morning,” said Tohasyim, who, like many Indonesians, has only one name.
