The Fate of the Forest: Developers, Destroyers, and Defenders of the Amazon, Updated Edition Paperback – Illustrated, January 15, 2011

It seems only appropriate to review the remarkable and engaging book about the fate of the Amazon on Amazon.com. The website's name suggests huge and good, and leaves a lot unsaid. My own perception of the Amazon rain forest has been that it was huge (but under assault and diminishing hour-by-hour) and good (diverse species, carbon absorbing). For me at least, the rest wasn't so much unsaid as barely imagined: green, canopy, impenetrable, rivers with piranhas, brutal roads, fires. What is the Amazon, actually?So, this book tells us its dimensions; its historical role (for much longer than I knew) in imagination and in political and economic calculations; how it came under assault, like the rest of the planet, as we upped our industrial game; and remarkable insight into the present trend. But the dimension I hadn't grasped at all was the lives of people, the cultures, the ways of living in the Amazon. As a city boy, I'm accustomed to local complexity, and this book gave me a view of the complex relationships, conflicts, and ways of living that are the human aspect of life in the forest.The present is complicated too, but the going-going-gone idea that's been a spiritual toothache isn't the whole story. Determined and to some extent successful initiatives have preserved some of the forest as a bio-resource, as a carbon sink, and as the home and land of people and their ways of life. The game is in full play, not winding down to a hollywooded bio-disaster. With the emergence of global trade in carbon credits, there may be new power and money in the movement to keep the Amazon huge and good.

In "The Fate of the Forest", independent journalists Susanna Hecht and Alexander Cockburn guide us deep into the Amazon rainforest, helping us to better understand the social, economic, ecological, and political dynamics of this threatened bioregion with its diverse tropical plant life, endangered species, and indigenous peoples. Along the way, we meet a myriad of environmental activists, union organizers, and indigenous leaders who are standing up bravely to the multinational corporations destroying the forest. If you care at all about the planet, it will sicken you to read about the clear-cutting of the forest for cattle ranches and soy plantations and how mining companies are contaminating the rivers, fish, and native peoples with mercury. Really, this is a great book, one that every environmentalist needs to read. I highly recommend it.

I bought this book to aid in research. It's accurate and informative. But the writing style is extremely dry, and it is definitely for a higher level reader.

thank you

Great book, clearly spells out the implications of losing our rain forests. Doesn't get too heavy on the political side either.

In very good condition