40 Leading Conservationists and the Animals They Are Committed to Saving
by Julie Scardinia and Jeff Floken – $23.00
This is both a beautiful and inspiring book with amazing pictures of people who are working to save extraordinary endangered species of our land, water and air.
Each chapter is about a unique animal or bird or fish and is divided into paragraphs outlining facts of their habitat, their life habits and why it is important to preserve this species. And for each species, there is a picture of the wild life hero who is working to save that particular species along with their education and the reason they have chosen to do the important work they are doing.
For instance, Nguyen Van Thai, with a graduate certificate from the University of Kent in Britain, is a resident of Vietnam. As a young boy growing up in Northern Vietnam, most families didn’t have much and hunted wild meat to feed their families. Thai was very sad when he saw two people from his village attack an “Asian Pangolin’s” burrow, knowing that the captured pangolins would be going into the cooking pot!
Pangolins in Vietnam are endangered. Two other Asian species of pangolins and two of the African Pangolin species are classified as Near Threatened. Pangolins play a critical role in natural insect control, especially ants and termites, saving humans millions of dollars in pest damage, reducing the need for harmful chemicals. As well, pangolin burrows provide shelter for some rodents and reptiles.
Ngugen Van Thai is just one of forty conservationists profiled in this book, along with the species they are committed to preserving. It is likely that the reader will learn of species never heard of before. These inspiring people are not only trying to save these species, but through their work they are also working on related and crucial wild life issues: climate change; fire; wild life consumption and wild life disease; habitant loss; and ocean degradation.
This is both a ‘feel good’ book in terms of knowing how hard people are working to conserve things which are endangered but also a ‘worry’ book as one realizes all that is at stake if we do not find ways to help these heroes.
Tags: P'lovers Book Club