Langkawi's eco-hotspot

IN the animal kingdom, only one rule guides them all - lunch.

By that token, they're not all that different from humans, laughs Aidi Abdullah - self-taught naturalist, former flight instructor and veritable guardian/curator of the lush living exhibit that is Langkawi's Kilim Karst Geoforest Park. To hear him tell it, a day in this rich, wild ecosystem sounds like a day in the office - with its occupants slugging it out to get ahead, establishing a hierarchy, changing to stay relevant and survive, forming cliques and looking for tasty things to eat at meal times.

The whole scenario plays out in a three-hour boat tour of the Kilim Karst - the kind of landscape that only Mother Nature can carve out on a good day. Or in this case, over 500 million years. That's how old these limestone formations are - once solid rock whittled down by acid rain-and-salt dissolution into a breathtaking series of jagged cliffs, with rivers forming between them in the geological process. But what really ups your respect for the power and mystery of nature is the sight of the flora and fauna whose genetic make-up evolved against the odds over millennia to become the flourishing species seen today.