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Photo of the Day

August 01, 2004

Pulp Processing, Sarawak, Malaysia, 1998

Photograph by Maria Stenzel

"To get flour from the rain forest, Asik, headman of a band of Penan nomads, tramples pulp from the sago palm as his wife adds water. Strained through a rattan mat, the pasty starch is collected and dried into powder. The nomad's staple food, sago is plentiful in Gunung Mulu National Park. Elsewhere in the forest, loggers plow down the palms to get at larger timber. The resulting underbrush—tangled and over-grown from direct sunlight—makes the remaining palms often difficult to reach."

—From "Vanishing Cultures," August 1999, National Geographic magazine