Book Description

Book Description

Fully revised, this landmark volume takes readers deep inside the "living cathedral" of the forest interior and examines the forces that threaten the biome's survival.

Tropical Rainforest presents an action plan for the concerned individual and the whole of humanity to implement before the potentially bleak consequences of tropical deforestation become unavoidable. Combining comprehensive fact-filled text and an extensively revised bibliography and tables with 300 stunning full-color photographs, this book is destined to remain the leading reference on this vital issue.

Among the topics covered are:
* What is a Tropical Rainforest?: Examines the vast array of species and life forms that comprise the rainforest
* This Web of Life: Explains the dynamics of the rainforest, including pollination and seed dispersal and the food chain
* Threats to the Forest: Details the contributing factors to rainforest destruction, including timber extraction, mining and pollution, and cattle raising
* What Do We Lose?: Focuses of the effects of deforestation, including dwindling land, natural, and human resources
* A Blueprint for Survival: Offers concrete plans for conservation, such as habitat preservation, and funding for rainforest projects
* Reason for Hope: Assesses the future of the tropical rainforest.

Reviews:
Praise for the previous edition:
"...big, beautifully designed and illustrated with extraordinary photographs." -Friends of the Earth ... Read more

Book Description

Ecologists Vandermeer and Perfecto look beyond simplistic explanations to show exactly why biodiversity is in such jeopardy around the world and what steps must be taken to slow the ravaging of rain forests. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

thought-provoking
Wonderfully researched, if sometimes dryly written. If you like this book, then you'll likely find something interesting in the coffee-table book, Costa Rica: The Last Country the Gods Made.

The essays, " New Conservation in the Costa Rican Parks System" and "House Made of Rain" touch on many of the things discussed in Vandermeer's text.

Great explanation of political ecology
As a professional in the environmental area in Central America, I applaud Vandermeer and Perfecto's explanations of the workings of man in the humid tropical forests of our region. These are not easy issues, yet they manage to leave the reader with a sense of the urgency without oversimplifying or becoming preachy. This book is best for someone who is really interested in the political ramifications of US policy in the tropics, or for someone interested in working in the environment overseas.

Great examination of rain forest destruction
I was drawn to this book because of the foreword by Vandana Shiva. I kept reading it. It does a good job of looking at several of the different variables causing rain forest destruction and keys in on land and food as major factors. Clear and easily read. Not to long or overly verbose.

Excellent, in-depth analysis of the loss of rainforests.
Vandermeer and Perfecto step forward with a review of a difficult and complex subject. Their analysis does not show the one-sided perspective that many do; they address the root causes of the problem of Deforestation in Tropical America. The book is excellent in its readability, depth, and human approach to what too many scientists try to explain as a purely biological problem. Gerald R. Urquhart Ph.D. ... Read more

Book Description

The essays collected here offer important new reflections on the multiple images of and rhetoric surrounding the rain forest. The slogan "Save the Rain Forest!"—emblazoned on glossy posters of tall trees wreathed in vines and studded with monkeys and parrots—promotes the popular image of a marvelously wild and vulnerable rain forest. While such icons have fueled laudable rescue efforts, these essays show that in many ways they have done more harm than good. Images like these tend to conceal both the biological variety of rain forests and the diversity of their human inhabitants, the contributors contend. They also frequently obscure the specific local and global interactions that are as much a part of today's rain forests as are their array of plants and animals. Attentive to such complexities, this volume focuses on specific portrayals of rain forests and the consequences of these representations for both forest inhabitants and outsiders.

From diverse disciplines—history, archaeology, sociology, literature, law, and cultural anthropology—the contributors provide case studies from Latin America, Asia, and Africa. They point the way toward a search for a rain forest that is both a natural entity and a social history, an inhabited place and a shifting set of ideas. The essayists track how the image of a single, wild and yet fragile forest became fixed in the popular mind in the late twentieth century and influenced the policies of corporations, environmental groups, and governments. Such simplistic conceptions, In Search of the Rain Forest shows, might lead companies to tout their "green" technologies even as they try to downplay the dissenting voices of native populations. Or they might cause a government to create a tiger reserve that displaces peaceful peasants while opening the doors to poachers and bandits. By encouraging a nuanced understanding of distinctive, constantly evolving forests with different social and natural histories, this volume provides an important impetus to crafting protection efforts that take into account the rain forest in all of its complexity.

Contributors. Scott Fedick, Alex Greene, Paul Greenough, Nancy Peluso, Suzana Sawyer, Candace Slater, Charles Zerner ... Read more

Book Description

Here is the first traveller's guidebook on how to survive in the jungle and walk out alive.

Adventure travel, whether in the rain forests of Brazil or the jungles of Belize, can be filled with risk and even life-or-death situations. Now here is a complete guide on how to cope with and survive the unique and often deadly challenges of a jungle excursion.

Jungle Travel & Survival,written by a seasoned veteran of over seventy-five expeditions, will teach you everything you need to know:

* The different types of tropical environment you'll encounter
* What type of gear you'll need
* How to effectively combat traveler's ailments
* The dos and don'ts of interacting with unknown tribal civilizations
* How to cope with every type of hazard-both physical and psychological
* What to do if you get separated from civilization, and how to increase your odds for survival and rescue.
* And much more.

Whether you're a professional outdoorsman or an adventurer planning your first expedition, Jungle Travel & Survival is the only guide you'll need. ... Read more

Reviews (6)

John Walden's Jungle Travel & Survival
Living in the largest rainforest in the world is a great life, yet dangers can be at ever turning of the trail.Dr. Walden has written a superb book for both the casual traveler as well as the experienced explorer.There are numerous books and persons who call themselves "experts" that have written about the rainforest.Only a few of these "experts" come close to the truth about life here; while most can only use hype and self praise to sell their books, Dr. Walden has walked the walk and can talk the talk.Great read, excellent information and I highly recommend it even for the arm chair explorers.
Dr. Juanito Aguila Zala
Nuevo Andoas, Ecuador

Ok for the price...
It's more ...prepare your self to travel.
I liked getting tips on culture understanding.It was fun to read.
But the author suggest alot of other books.
Very fast and general.

It's not what a needed.Not enough information for me.Sorry.

lots about travel, less about survival
If you're thinking of travelling to a jungle area, this book is indispensible.It has well-thought out information about everything from health to culture shock, dealing with guides, children in the jungle, how to behave when interacting with tribal populations, what to pack, group dynamics, managing a mosquito net, the truth about ants, how to tolerate being wet all day, how to use a machete... literally everything you'll need to know.

My only criticism is that the information about jungle survival (as opposed to travel) is only one chapter, and though it is also well-written, is limited in scope.My sense is that this was an excellent travel book with some survival information thrown in at the last minute to justify putting 'survival' in the title.Therefore, hard-core survival researchers might be disappointed.All others are likely to tremendously appreciate this book.

Excellent information on jungle travel
Dr. John Walden, who has spent much of his career in the jungle, has written an excellent book covering the essentials of jungle travel. If you plan to travel to these areas, the bestthinkg would be to have Dr. Walden as a teavel companion. The next best thing would be to read this book. Hoghly recommended!

A great guide!
Dr. John Walden has written an excellent guide to jungle travel and medicine. He has drawn on many decades of experience practicing medicine in the jungles of South America. This is a fascinating guide to jungle travel and jungle survival. If you plan to visit a jungle area, the best thing would be to have Dr. Walden in your party. Failing that, the next best thing would be to read this book! ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (6)

Jeff really did it...again!
As a young child, I loved Jeff Corwin's old show Going Wild with Jeff Corwin but when his new show came out A Jeff Corwin Expirience, I was so excited.
Jeff's book was funny, educational, and an overall great book to read. He described the animals with such beautiful detail that you wouldn't excpect from a silly person like him. One minute I would be laughing really hard and then the next, I would realize that he was talking about the repreduction of toads or the consiquences of putting a certain kind of ants in your mouth.
Truely, a wonderful book!

An excellent read!
I am a devoted fan of the Jeff Corwin Experience and as soon as Christmas came around, I had only one thing on my mind:Jeff Corwins new book. As soon as I got it into my hands, I couldn't put it down.Once I started reading,I felt as if I had left home and was experiencing his adventures.The photographs are awesome. I even imagined myself "jumping" into them and coming out the other side. This book is great! Its humorous and it keeps your attention the whole time. A must read for all Jeff fanatics and animal lovers!

Phenomenal Reading Material! Lots of Fun
I'm naturally a huge fan of Jeff Corwin and his work to help nature and its inhabitants is very much needed these days. He does a wonderful job in putting you in the locale that he is in. Vivid descriptions and his natural mix of humor makes this an excellent book for any reading enthusiast. Great photos included. Definetely worth adding to your collection. You'll have lots of fun reading it!

Outstanding Experiance
Being a fan of The Jeff Corwin Experiance this book appealed to me right away. With Jeff's stories taking you from the Sonoran Desert of Arizona to the Llanos of Venezuela you can expect a great time reading this. You will find yourself laughing at times when he dazzels his great humor and feeling for the animals when they are placed against the wicked and cruel nature of life. This book is a definate bedside keeper for Jeff fans and for all Animal lovers.

Excellent book for animal lovers & fans of Jeff's show
As a fan of The Jeff Corwin Experience, I eagerly bought this book when it first came out. I was very excited to read it and was definitely not disappointed. Jeff's humor and wit are even more apparent in the book, and his knowledge is shown to be flawless.

The book is composed of four sections, each of which explore an area of the world: Arizon's Sonoran desert, the African savannah, the Costa Rican rainforest, and the Llanos of Venezuela. I found this selection perfect, as I'd seen specials on each of these previously. I hope, however, that maybe Jeff will explore other areas, perhaps Australia or Asia, in future books. Jeff does not merely describe animals or give facts about them; he composes an intricate story about each animal, sometimes to the point that you feel very concerned or saddened when something happens to the creature at hand. You are not really learning about Jeff's experience with the animals, you are experiencing them firsthand.

The book is definitely well-written. Jeff's humor and enthusiasm come across loud and clear. Also, the photographs are second to none, and almost all of them (except perhaps five) were taken by Jeff! My only disappointment about the book was that the editing was a tad sloppy, as there were typos and words missing at times.

Overall, however, this is a superb book for an Animal Planet viewer, an animal lover, an explorer, or a Jeff Corwin fan. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (3)

Extraordinary photography--concise information
I am a teacher building an Ecology unit around Rainforests--I have checked out 32 library books to aid my students in their research. This title is definately the stand out!!!

This book is both an artistic and a literary masterpiece.
Not only will the astounding photographs enchant the reader but the text will also provide him with a collection of important information. The pictures will captivate the reader and further serve to impact oneself upon learning of the daily destruction of the animals and plants behind the images. The information of the text is well delivered and insightful and the photographs are a must see.

Highly recommended; as beautiful as it is informative
The photographs in this book have the power to transport you to the very lands it depicts; the rainforests come alive. These visual reminders only heighten the impact of the horrible statistics that detail the daily destruction of the world's rainforests ... Read more

Book Description

The destruction of tropical forests is intimately intertwined with the fate of the rural poor who rely on this resource for their livelihood.provides important information for understanding the interactions of forest peoples and forest resources in the lowland tropics of Central and South America. This interdisciplinary study features experts from both the natural and social sciences to illuminate the present dilemma of conserving neotropical resources. These contributors -who are responsible for some of the most promising work in cultural and biodiversity conservation -investigate the patterns of traditional resource use, evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of existing research, and explore innovative directions for furthering the interdisciplinary conservationist agenda. ... Read more

Book Description

As seen from Skylab a mere ten years ago, the Amazon Basin was a dense expanse of trees stretching from horizon to horizon.Broken only by winding rivers, it was a lush image of endless growth.More recent photographs, however, depict quite a different landscape: a blazing forest enshrouded in a vast cloud of smoke that thinned only at the foot of the Andes.Once it was difficult to comprehend the extent of rain forests; now it is hard to comprehend the extent of their destruction. In 1989 alone, more than 55,000 square miles of rain forests were lost around the world: burned for cattle ranching and small-scale farming, flooded by dam projects, plundered for precious ores, timber, and rare species of animals and plants, scarred by roads built by the ravaging invaders.If the present rate of deforestation continues, many rain forests in tropical America, Africa, and Asia will be gone by the end of the next century.In fact, less than .02 percent are currently being managed on a sustainable basis.

The Last Rain Forests is an authoritative, comprehensive, and--with more than 200 full color photographs and maps--stunningly beautiful guide to the people, flora, and fauna of the richest habitats on earth. Prepared in collaboration with the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a consortium of some 500 major conservation organizations across the globe, and the World Conservation Monitoring Centre, this is the first popular reference to map the world's rain forests, spell out the problems facing these regions, and propose realistic strategies for ensuring their survival.It discusses in detail what the world's rain forests are, how they work, who lives in them, and why we need them, and explores the threats they face today.The volume then presents a unique, thoroughly up-to-date atlas of more than fifty rain forests, from the Caribbean to Central Africa, from Brazil to Bangladesh.It concludes with concrete proposals for saving these imperiled regions and, ultimately, our planet.

A pictorial feast, an authoritative reference, and a blueprint for change, The Last Rain Forests allows readers to shape informed opinions--and take positive action--on one of the most pressing environmental issues of our day. ... Read more

Book Description

One hundred and fifty years ago, Charles Darwin asked how a rain forest could contain so many species: "What explains the riot?" The same question occupies the scientists who toil on Panama"s Barro Colorado Island today. Tropical and steamy, these six square miles comprise the best-studied rain forest in the world, a locus of scientific activity since 1923.
In THE TAPIR'S MORNING BATH, Elizabeth Royte weaves together her own adventures on Barro Colorado with tales of researchers struggling to parse the intricate workings of the rain forest, the most complicated natural system on the planet. Through the lens of the field station, she also traces the history of modern biology from its earliest days of collection and classification through the decline of the naturalist to the days of intense niche specialization and rigorous scientific quantification.
As Royte counts seeds and sorts insects, collects monkey dung and radiotracks bats, she begins to wonder: what is the point of such arcane studies? The world over, rain forests are rapidly disappearing and species are going extinct. While humanizing the scientists in the field, she explores the tension between their research and the reality of a world that may not have time for the answers. ... Read more

Reviews (6)

journey of discovery
On the trail of the scientists who make the trails

A journalist follows researchers into the South American rain forest to study the mystery of their devotion

By Diana Muir

Deep in the tropical rain forest, a small fruit-eating bat carefully nicks the veins on the underside of a philodendron leaf, causing the edges to fold down like a miniature tent. The bat curls up under its little tent and goes to sleep. Other bats don't make tents, why do these?
In "The Tapir's Morning Bath," journalist Elizabeth Royte follows field biologists into the rain forest with a similar question: Other people, after all, do not feel compelled to sit up all night being bitten by mosquitoes, ticks, and chiggers. Why do these?

The Panama Canal is made up of a channel leading inland from each coast, joined by an immense manmade lake that covers what was once a rain forest. Numerous islands dot the lake. In the 1920s, a group of foresighted scientists managed to have the largest, Barro Colorado, with its nearly intact tropical forest, set aside as a scientific preserve.

In these pages, the present-day researchers of Barro Colorado spring vividly to life. Royte follows a young biologist from UC Berkeley, as the biologist follows a troop of spider monkeys.

Studying monkeys like this entails long days of trailing the agile little creatures as they skitter through the treetops, clambering easily from branch to branch. For an earth-bound researcher, keeping up with the troop entails scrambling up steep ravines, pushing through tangled undergrowth, and skidding down hillsides slick with rain. The early weeks are especially frustrating, as distrustful monkeys shy away from the interloper.

Royte, a New York journalist, is as much an interloper on the island as this scientist is among the troop of monkeys. The scientists, after all, have paid their dues to get here. They have spent years in graduate school, and they reach Barro Colorado only after their laboriously planned studies survive rigorous review to be selected for funding.

But Royte ingratiates herself by offering to help. On the island, these scientists work long hours, and conversation can be larded with arcane jargon incomprehensible to an outsider. She's willing to wade through this - and the muck of mangrove swamps - to hang insect traps on branches and sit on the forest floor counting the number of leaf-cutter ants that march past.

As they whiz across the lake in a Boston whaler, Royte is determined to pursue her subject at full throttle, even as the distinguished biologist perched in the bow tries to net moths without falling overboard. He shares his excitement about the natural world in all its magnificent complexity.

For instance, he tells her, urania moths migrate annually. Some years, however, only a few hundred appear. Other years, several hundred million moths fly past the island. No one knows where they come from or where they are bound. In Royte's retelling, scientific enthusiasm is infectious. Soon we, too, want to know what drives these winged nomads.

Readers will come away from "The Tapir's Bath" with an appreciation of the way narrow research questions become the material from which useful knowledge is constructed. But don't read it for that.

Read it for the thrill of the chase. Will the young researcher from Berkeley who has trudged the forest for three days without so much as a glimpse of a non-human primate ever locate her spider-monkey troop? Will the German biologist whose sophisticated equipment fails manage to contrive an impromptu method to measure the effect of leaf-cutting ants on the trees they harvest? And will the PhD candidate from the University of Michigan astound his professors by synthesizing a new theory to explain why biological diversity decreases with distance from the equator, or fulfill their expectations by failing even to discover why bats make tents?

And just why does a tapir take a morning bath?

• Diana Muir is the author of 'Bullough's Pond,' winner of the 2001 Massachusetts Book Award

In Depth Study of Primate (Biologists) Behavior in the Wild
Let me say first of all that I am a layman who is a science buff. My education is in Psychology, but I love biology, neuroscience, physics, and related topics. Tapir's Bath looked like an entertaining way to cram more about creature behavior into my brain. Actually you end up learning not an awful lot about the behavior of animals in the wild, but you do get an education about the behavior of scientists in the wild. While most primates, man included, are social animals, scientists seem to be loners like members of the cat family. They often are reclusive, enticed to be social only by the promise of a party that offers booze and food. Territorially jealous they form caste systems that allow them to sneer at other specialties. They grumble about cell biologists that sit in nice warm laboratories while they have to plow through muck and rain, bitten by a variety of small insects. Oh yes, and the microbiologists get all of the public attention, and the research funding. The public just doesn't seem to care about the distance a bat flies to obtain food.

The science bits are quite interesting, but not comprehensive enough to add much to your knowledge of biology. But that doesn't matter. The scientists on Barro Colorado Island deserve a lot of credit for their painstaking, difficult, uncomfortable research. I was interested in reading about their field research while being thankful that I majored in a subject that keeps me indoors where my biggest environmental problem is getting the thermostat adjusted correctly. Elizabeth Royte also proves that science writers often have to endure hardships. Pregnant during some of her long stay on Barro Colorado, she also trekked through rain and mud, returning to base to rest in bed and meditate on the cockroaches climbing her walls. It's a fun book.

An eye opener, entertaining and informative
Elizabeth Royte successfully outlines the mysteries of the tropical rainforest and the plenty of questions it still harbors. A layman who is overwhelmed by the abundance of species gets a glimpse of an understanding of biodiversity and its interdependencies. For me it was impressive how Royte narrows down that each living being is part of that big wonder called nature. Like in a waterfall she is coming down 3 levels from general questions raised by Charles Darwin and S.T.R.I. founder's spirit to the emphatically described individual projects of the scientists on BCI. By watching the scientists at their work in a first place she finally learns that she can not remain out of the loop, but is herself a part of the permanent cycle of life. I was lucky enough to visit BCI for a couple of days only, but immediately felt a deep affection and rememberance during reading. This great book has the potential to make researcher's work more transparent und thus more popular and at the end of the day to have people treating nature with more respect.

I loved it
I absolutely loved every page of this book. As a field biologist who's spent time in remote rainforest field stations, I can say that she very accurately portrays many of the ups, downs and quirks of station life. Not only that, but she gives very honest descriptions of many aspects that biologists aren't as open to acknowledge (like the competitiveness and one-upmanship in wildlife viewing).
The only down point in my opinion, is that many of the scientific names are misspelled, which detracts a bit of seriousness from other information she gives. Then again, I am one of those "peculiar" rainforest biologists, so maybe I take it too personally *grin*
I also very much enjoyed her views on conservation and scientific research. Once again, she presents things from a different angle, with refreshing honesty and bluntness that is often missing in books written by biologists.
I would not hesitate for a second to recommend this book!!

Island Passions, Mostly for Science
In a lake in Panama sits a six square mile island, Barro Colorado, and there are permanent research and living facilities there which have made the island one of the best-studied patches of rainforest in the world. A wonderful book, _The Tapir's Morning Bath: Mysteries of the Tropical Rain Forest and the Scientists Who Are Trying to Solve Them_ (Houghton Mifflin) memorably shows what the scientists are up to. Elizabeth Royte is a journalist, not a naturalist, but she was not just taking notes but taking part. She ingratiated herself into the society of strange eggheads who loved fieldwork by simply making herself available as an extra pair of untrained but willing hands. Because of this we get to follow her on all sorts of recondite forays to coax the jungle to give up its secrets. She follows spider monkeys in order to catch their feces, which she bags so that they can be analyzed for hormones. She climbs out branches to hang insect traps, and counts ants. She drives a Boston whaler zooming around the lake so that a biologist perilously hanging off the front can net migrating moths, and she learns to sex the moths by squeezing their thoraces. She triangulates to find out where bats fly around in the dark. She climbs trees to help monitor the behavior of creeping vines that modify the forest. At one point, a newcomer naturalist comes into Royte's room, mistakenly thinking she has found a fellow naturalist: "Oh, hi. Hi. Do you happen to have a syringe smaller than 1 cc? I'm trying to inject some solution into a butterfly's ear canal and what I have is way too big." Royte is excited about all these tasks, and her enthusiasm is on every page of her book. In addition, she has humorous descriptions of the men and women working on the island, but playing as well, with Ultimate Frisbee one of the least controversial amusements. But it is their work that makes the book. One of them explains that if he were intent on conservation, he'd be doing other work to promote it directly, and that he is attempting something like pure thought: "I'm setting up this experiment as an exercise in thinking. I don't want a utilitarian reason for everything. Why do we need art? I feel the same way about basic science: It's good for us."

Reading Royte's book is good for us, too. There is a wide array of scientific information presented here, and plenty of good humor, raconteurship, and insight into how science is done and what makes scientists do it. It is also a deeply personal document, as during the year Royte married (to someone back in the States), became pregnant, and found that her reflections on nature and on evolution were deepened by the embryo growing with her. This is a surprisingly moving book about scientific endeavor and the solving of puzzles within and puzzles without. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Astonishing color pictures from the rain forest
A very handsome book, full of beautiful color photographs of neotropical wildlife. Definitely the most captivating picture book about the rain forest that I know of. It made me even more aware of the need to preserve the incredibly rich variety of life forms on our planet. ... Read more

Book Description

Can we prevent the destruction of the world's tropical forests? In the fire-scarred hills of Costa Rica, award-winning science writer William Allen found a remarkable answer: we can not only prevent their destruction--we can bring them back to their former glory. In Green Phoenix, Allen tells the gripping story of a large group of Costa Rican and American scientists and volunteers who set out to save the tropical forests in the northwestern section of the country. It was an area badly damaged by the fires of ranchers and small farmers; in many places a few strands of forest strung across a charred landscape. Despite the widely held belief that tropical forests, once lost, are lost forever, the team led by the dynamic Daniel Janzen from the University of Pennsylvania moved relentlessly ahead, taking a broad array of political, ecological, and social steps necessary for restoration. They began with 39 square miles and, by 2000, they had stitched together and revived some 463 square miles of land and another 290 of marine area. Today this region is known as the Guanacaste Conservation Area, a fabulously rich landscape of dry forest, cloud forest, and rain forest that gives life to some 235,000 species of plants and animals. It may be the greatest environmental success of our time, a prime example of how extensive devastation can be halted and reversed. This is an inspiring story, and in recounting it, Allen writes with vivid power. He creates lasting images of pristine beaches and dense forest and captures the heroics and skill of the scientific teams, especially the larger-than-life personality of the maverick ecologist Daniel Janzen. It is a book everyone concerned about the environment will want to own. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Deforestation? How about rainforest restoration!?!
How often have you've heard the tales of gloom and doom regarding the deforestation of the tropics? Undoubtedly, the numbers are grim and the outlook for many forests is not good. This is why this story, wonderfully told by William Allen, a science writer at the ST. LOUIS DISPATCH, is particularly refreshing and guardedly optimistic.

Allen craftily weaves anecdote with history, real people with events to present a story that tells how a relatively small park in NW Costa Rica (Guanacaste National Park) developed into the Guanacaste Conservation Area, some 10 times larger than its original size. But the story is not limited to the success in creating a larger park. Rather, the author depicts the efforts of a determined group of Costa Rican and foreign scientists (led by Daniel Janzen) as they attempt to reverse the effects of deforestation and actually bring a substantial area back to some semblance of its original state.

The story delves quite a bit into Janzen's personality and raises the issue of a foreigner's role in a project such as this. Would it succeed without him? Just what would it take to restore non-virgin forest? Is this an idea that might work elsewhere? Just a few of the intriguing questions dealt with in this book.

I particularly enjoyed the beginning of each chapter, where the author introduces an anecdote upon which the rest of chapter usually builds. The anecdotal information is highly entertaining of itself, and when used as metafor, it is easier to remember the larger points made.

If you're into eco-whatever, this is great stuff...

paul e. ... Read more

Amazon.com

The largest temperate rainforest on the planet and home to grizzly bears, deer, moose, salmon, eagles, and myriad Native American tribes, the Tongass once covered southeast Alaska like a vibrant green carpet. That carpet has seen better days. In the 1950s, with sweetheart deals that provided seemingly limitless volumes of timber at well below market cost, the U.S. government enticed two pulp companies to set up shop there. The federal legislation opened up the country's largest national forest to massive industrial clear-cutting; it also set the stage for a bare-knuckles environmental battle that would reach its apex near the end of the century and become a template for future skirmishes.

A former environmental journalist for the Portland Oregonian, Durbin tells the story of the Tongass with a crime reporter's eye for deadly facts--which will fascinate anyone with an interest in the subject, particularly Alaskans and environmentalists. She details the collusion between the two pulp mills to keep prices down and small loggers squeezed; the illegal pollutant dumping; the union-busting; the U.S. Forest Service's bureaucratic myopia; the thousands of miles of logging roads punched through formerly pristine watersheds; and the destruction of once-prolific salmon streams and big-game habitat in a region renowned for its hunting and fishing.Durbin is at her best, though, unraveling the complex political processes behind the timber wars, both at the national level and the local, as well as exposing the backroom dealmaking that goes on between elected officials, corporate leaders, and activists. Perhaps most compelling is the subplot of coalition-building among fledgling enviro groups that spans decades, especially the progress of the Southeast Alaska Conservation Council (SEACC), founded in Juneau in the late '60s.Beginning as a tiny assortment of part-time, longhaired activists with nary a cent, SEACC eventually sends its own lobbyists to Washington. By the late 1980s, due largely to SEACC's tireless work, a New York Times editorial is calling the federally subsidized logging on the Tongass "so wrongheaded it's likely to provoke profanity from any fair-minded person," and Sports Illustrated is covering the story with an article entitled "Forest Service Follies." Through all this the author's sympathies are clear: significant portions of the Tongass, once a magnificent, sprawling ancient forest of spruce and hemlock, have been largely reduced to newspaper pulp--and, incredibly, at a loss to U.S. taxpayers. --Langdon Cook ... Read more

Reviews (5)

In 2003 we are still tearing this treasure down
Journalist Kathie Durbin has written one of the finest investigative works that I have read. I'm a lawyer with biology and chemistry degrees and I find the extensive endnotes, legal references and her penchant to seek out and cite primary sources refreshing.

There is nothing here that supports any label of the author, save that of professional. This work has disturbed me for years. I have become more active in the fight to preserve the ONLY temperate rain forest left in North America because of her clear and concise use of well-supported facts.

The most disturbing fact not in the book is that the lumber industry is now nothing but a byproduct of the pulp industry.

Ms. Durbin shows us how Salmon spawning grounds destroyed out of greed and carelessness by logging right up to the spawning streams and destroying the shade that the Salmon's Redd's require, and by the disposal of low pH waste into bays and estuaries and by the effects of runoff from clearcuts (damaging sub-arctic land and water: a fragile environment, indeed).

There is no room to debate the facts...only the policy. Calling this work or its author names simply illustrates the old adage: if you can't win on the facts attack the fact-finder.

Read this book. ANWAR may be the cause celeb today, but the damage to the Tongass is going on NOW.

Pulp Fiction
As a 50 year resident of Ketchikan, I was curious how a "tree hugger" would portray the fight for the Tongass--known in these parts as the fight for a reasonable standard of living. Ms. Durbin quotes environmental organizer Donald Ross on page 172: "It doesn't take much, when you're a congressman from Kansas and you've never heard of the Tongass, to get you to vote for trees." When all is said and done, that was the tactic of the environmentalists. On page 246, she says, "Most who did [find job after the Sitka mill closed] were forced to make do with a lower standard of living than they had become accustomed to on pulp mill wages." How easily she dismisses the plight of those who live in the Tongass. There's a lot Ms. Durbin doesn't mention like the fact that only the wealthy and refugees from the 60's can afford to experience up close & personal the pristine beauty of the nation's First Park. The environmentalists have won. Sierra Club, kiss my ax!

Trash
I have lived in the Tongass,, The Tongass is being sold out to the tour package industry,, this industry is no different than any other. The people who live here through its most harsh winters are being dictated to by feel good (my Disney Land) visitors. Many wonderful Alaskan familys have been displaced because of this myth.

How we almost lost a national treasure
Kathie Durbin reveals the irresponsible and corrupt practices of the U.S. government, the Forest Service, and the pulp mills it was in bed with in Southeast Alaska, and how their destructive logging practices politicized a whole contingent of people to stop the decimation of our last temperate rainforest. Read "Tongass" and your blood will boil over what happened there, and what is still happening in many of our other forests today.

Excellent Modern History of the Tongass
As relative newcomer to Southeast Alaska (1998), I have found it difficult to obtain unbiased views regarding regional resource management. This excellent bit of history by Durbin tells a very important story about this incredible national resource and the people who have shaped it, for better or worse. Many of the people mentioned are neighbors and acquaintances who have played important roles in shaping the newer policies affecting the Tongass. I now have a much greater appreciation and respect for those who took real risks and fought hard to improve timber practices on the Tongass, which is more than I can say for our state's congressional delegation. Durbin has done a real service to those of us trying to better understand the complexities of the various governmental agencies, corporations(including Native corporations), environmental groups, and private citizens that intertwine to determine whether resources are to be managed in a truly sustainable fashion in this spectacular place. ... Read more

Book Description

"The Websters have produced an entertaining and informative account of a magical place. . . . Their book should be of interest not only to those familiar with El Cielo or with other natural areas in Mexico, but also to anyone drawn to natural history, travel, and memorable places." --Lane Simonian, author of Defending the Land of the Jaguar: A History of Conservation in MexicoHidden high in the Sierra de Guatemala mountain range of northeastern Mexico in the state of Tamaulipas is the northernmost tropical cloud forest of the Western Hemisphere. Within its humid oak-sweetgum woodlands, tropical and temperate species of plants and animals mingle in rare diversity, creating a mecca for birders and other naturalists.Fred and Marie Webster first visited Rancho del Cielo, cloud forest home of Canadian immigrant Frank Harrison, in 1964, drawn by the opportunity to see such exotic birds as tinamous, trogons, motmots, and woodcreepers only 500 miles from their Austin, Texas, home. In this book, they recount their many adventures as researchers and tour leaders from their base at Rancho del Cielo, interweaving their reminiscences with a history of the region and of the struggle by friends from both sides of the border to have some 360,000 acres of the mountain declared an area protected from exploitation--El Cielo Biosphere Reserve. Their firsthand reporting, enlivened with vivid tales of the people, land, and birds of El Cielo, adds an engagingly personal chapter to the story of conservation in Mexico. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

A Wonderful Book -- A Wonderful Adventure
This is a wonderful book. There is an adventure with every page turn and the descriptions are deliciously vivid. I always look for books that will "take me away," and at the same time, teach me something new. The Road To El Cielo took me to Mexico's cloud forests and inspired in me a new appreciation for its wildlife, plant life, and way of life. Highly Recommended. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Conservation Atlas of Tropical Forests:Asia and the Pacific
This book is important book ... Read more