The Wuliangshan gibbons are unusual for their social structure. Most gibbons live in small family groups, consisting of a mating pair and their offspring. But these gibbons exist in troops. One male can have two or sometimes three females, and all of these can have young. Often even the juveniles stay in the community. Rarely glimpsed, this baby may be only a day old. If it survives infancy, then it has a promising future in these few valleys with its close-knit family.

 

Gibbon song once inspired the ancient poets of China, their glorious calls echoing far across the hills. But now new strangely quiet forests have come to Yunnan. These trees are here to produce an important and valuable crop.

 

When the tree bark is scored, it yields copious sticky sap so bitter and tacky that nothing can feed on it. It's the tree's natural defense against attack. It's collected daily, bowl by bowl. It will be boiled and processed into one of the most important materials to a fast developing nation--rubber. The expansion of the rubber forests began in the 50s when China, under a world rubber embargo, had to become self-sufficient in this vital product. Beijing turned to the only place where rubber could grow, the tropical south of Yunnan. With efficiency and speed, some of the world's richest forests were torn up and burned, replaced with mile upon mile of rubber plantation.