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The 'Mentawai Islands' are a chain of about 70 islands off the western coast of Sumatra in Indonesia.
Siberut (4,030 km²) is the largest of the islands. The other major islands are Sipura, North Pagai (''Pagai Utara'') and South Pagai (''Pagai Selatan''). The islands lie approximately 150 km off the Sumatran coast, across the Mentawai Strait. The indigenous inhabitants of the islands are known as the Mentawai. The Mentawai Islands have become a noted destination for surfing.

Contents

History

Administration

Ecology

See also

External links

History

In the mid-Pleistocene period the Mentawai Islands were separated from the Sumatran mainland by rising sea levels. The Mentawai people are estimated to have arrived on the islands somewhere between 2000 and 500 BCE, migrating from the north through Siberut and then moving south to Sipora and the Pagai islands.

The Portuguese were aware of the islands early in the 17th century - a map dated 1606 shows Siberut as "Mintaon". In August 1792 John Crisp, an employee of the British East India Company, visited the Pagai ("Poggy") islands at his own expense to study the Mentawai people. His account was published in 1799, providing the first details of the Mentawai people in western literature. The Mentawai Islands officially became part of the Dutch East Indies on 10 July 1864, not having been subject to the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824. In 1901 the German Royal Missionary Society established a presence on the south coast of North Pagai island at the invitation of the Dutch colonial authorities. The first missionary was murdered, and it wasn't until 1915 that the first person was converted, with the program then being extended to other islands.
After Indonesian independence, Catholic Italian missionaries established a presence in the islands. Post-independence government policies relocated the indigenous population into villages, in contrast to their traditional dispersed house groups (''uma''), with the aim of promoting "development". Cultural tourism started to develop in the late 1980s, and when in the mid-1990s world-class waves were discovered by some Australian surfers, surfing tourism started to develop.
The island of Siberut was extensively logged from the 1970s after the government granted logging permits for most of the island. In 1993, the logging concessions were revoked and about half the island was declared a national park. In 2001 logging recommenced after a new logging permit was granted for an area of 500 km².

Administration

The Mentawai Islands have been administered as a regency within the West Sumatra (''Sumatera Barat'') province since 1999. The regency seat is Tua Pejat, located on the island of Sipura. Padang, the capital of the province, lies on the Sumatran mainland opposite Siberut. The regency is divided in four subdistricts (''kecamatan''):
:Pagai Utara Selatan, Sipora, Siberut Selatan, and Siberut Utara.

Ecology

The islands have been separated from Sumatra since the mid-Pleistocene period, which has allowed at least twenty endemic species to develop amongst its flora and fauna. This includes four endemic primates: the Mentawai or Kloss Gibbon (''Hylobates klossii''), Mentawai Macaque (''Macaca pagensis''), Mentawai leaf-monkey (''Presbytis potenziani''), and snub-nosed monkey (''Simias concolor''). Some areas of the ''Mentawai Islands rain forest'' ecoregion are protected, such as the Siberut National Park.

See also

★ Mentawai ethnic group

External links

★ Anthropology of the Mentawai Islands

★ Native Planet: The Mentawai

★ Mentawai Islands rain forests (World Wildlife Fund)

★ Surf Aid International