Teaches the importance of the rain forests in the world, the unique animals, rare plants, undiscovered medicines and vanishing cultures.

My father knew the autor, Elizabeth Marston. He used to hunt up in quinault and visited Mrs. Marstons (Eudie is what she went by)store (cafe)all the time. She gave my father a few copies of the book and signed them for him.
He gave them as gifts to myself and my sister. I sat down to read this book and could not put it down, it is exciting, scarey,sad and wonderous plus so much more. It tells of her life starting from before her family came to the area, she tells of how they had to ride for hours on a dirt road, how they built the town and how they all lived. Hardships were part of their everyday life.
No book, or movie could ever compare to the true history, and real west right here in our back yard.
You don't have to be from here to read and enjoy this book, but for those who do it is a tale unlike any other IMO!

Ms Marston did not publish or sale very many of these books,which is a great loss to people IMO. she gave a lot away to friends and people who passed by her little place in the big green woods where she lived her whole life, and eventually died.
Read it, you will not be sorry!!

I believe that Caitlin Maynard has done a phenomenal job of conveying what it was like to explore a tropical ecosystem for the first time as a junior highschool student, while simultaneoulsy teaching the reader all about the wild creatures and plants of Belize. It's especially amazing, given the fact that she was so young when she wrote it. My favorite part was the photo of the whole group taken just before they embarked on their journey. The kids on the trip must have had lots of fun. Many of them were probably entranced by the multitude of new species they were seeing. Especially the girl on the front cover--I bet she did not even know she was being photographed! I also enjoyed the miraculously clear underwater photos of eels--however did the photographer get those pictures?

This gorgeous little book contains eight rain forest animal tattoos. They're all lovely and bright, with the most colorful being the toucan and the most graceful being the linsang (a type of civet). There's also a lively gazelle-like bongo, a sloth, a gibbon, a bold tree frog, a slender loris, and a great clouded leopard. I got this one for my young cousins but kept it for myself, you might find yourself doing the same!

As a high school science teacher I found this to be one of the best resources out there. All lessons have excellent research and background so anyone could pick it up and use it in their classroom. The lessons are also interdisciplinary. Each lesson starts out with a quick guideline as to appropriate age level, subjects covered, and materials needed. Some activities are very elementary but I feel that all lessons could be adapted even for high school students. This book also provides the reader with a great list of agencies and other contacts for further information about rain forests. I recommend this book for any educator.

Betsey Chessen is one of the greatest children's books writers of this century. Her style is so thought-provoking that even a 24 year-old bond trader will enjoy her work. I think I will read it again.....ok that was fun. Buy this book now!

This book has remedies for any ailment a woman could encounter. From wrinkles to cramps to irritable husbands. There's a great section on massage for children to fix anything from nail biting to colic. It also seems there is a tea recipie for anything you could ever suffer from.
My personal testamony: I have suffered from chronic menstral cramps for the past 5 years and no doctor could find the cause of the problem. This book helped me realize that my uterus is tilted back due to years of dacing and running on concrete. By massaging my abdomen using the arvigo method taught in this book, for 2-3 minutes a day, I'm able to control the cramping without drugs. You don't know how amazing that feels!
I'm not very experienced in natural healing, and I must admit it was a little overwhelming at first, but now I feel very confident in the subject.
This would make the perfect gift to anyone with or preparing to have children.

I have had the pleasure of studing with Rosita, and visiting her in Belize. I had a chance to look this book over while waiting for it to be published. It is a wonderful book, filled with the wisdom of the Mayan traditions, healings, and spiritual practices, that Rosita knows so well having spent over 30 years working with the Mayan healers. This book is a treasure and should be followed by reading her first book, Sastun, my appreticeship with a Maya healer, which followers her journey to Belize and her delightful relationship with Don Elijio Panti, one of the last most respected healers of Belize.

Antonia Forest has written a long series of books about the Marlowe family (some of which are impossible to get your hands on. They're all out of print). This book is set during their holidays when the oldest girl in the family suddenly marries an older man and brings him home with his three children from a previous marriage. If you haven't read any of the other books, this one would probably be difficult to follow. If you have, however, you will love it. The tension between people is acute. You see them at their worst and best. It's magnificently written. You know, children probably wouldn't like it even though it's a children's story. That's the problem. Antonia Forest is one of the greatest writers of all time. I love this book. I wish they were all in print and I wish I had them to read and read again.

Reefs And Rain Forests by Murray S. Kaufman is a stunningly beautiful compilation of full-color nature photography. Very little text or captions get in the way of the natural and visual splendor of full-page photographs of exotic reef life, fantastic tropical birds and insects, lush rainforests, and much more. Brief photographer's notes at the end round out the story behind these incredible images. Reefs And Rain Forests is highly recommended as a magnificent example of nature photography and would make a superb Memorial Fund acquisition for school or community library collections.

When John Terborgh publishes a book, anyone interested in the conservation of nature should read it. One of the world's foremost tropical ecologists, Terborgh writes in an unusually pleasing and, at the same time, provocative style. If the reader is only seeking entertainment or if a rigorously researched documentary of the context of personal experiences is sought, s/he will be disappointed; but, if the interest is in stimulating thought about the problems of nature conservation, the reward will be extraordinary. "Requiem for Nature" surpasses even Terborgh's own "Where Have All the Birds Gone?" as a intellectually challenging treatise.

For me, the richest passages in "Requiem for Nature" are those in Chapter 2 that describe the ecological relationships that must be maintained if nature is to be conserved and the need for a coherent, long-term strategy to meet the challenges.

As an anthropologist who has worked in areas near Manu National Park since 1971 --even before Terborgh arrived there-- I have long been following his work and thinking on tropical forest conservation issues. And I have many, many disagreements with his perspectives. However, no one can deny the value of his contributions in challenging current fashions in thinking about nature and its conservation.

The weaknesses of "Requiem for Nature" include serious inaccuracies in Terborgh's information about the historical and political contexts of the places he describes on the basis of his own and others' work, particularly in Chapters 3 and 4.

For example, the Summer Institute of Linguistics is said to have brought the Machiguenga into the Manu Park in the 1960s (p. 29); the Manu Park has been a Machiguenga homeland since at least Inka times and probably much longer. The purpose of Belgian linguist Marcel d'Ans's work is inaccurately described as "to open communication with uncontacted indigenous groups as a prelude to luring them out of the park" (p. 42).; d'Ans was there to develop policies for incorporating the indigenous peoples into park strategies, not to contact isolated Indians. There are numerous references to Amahuaca Indians in the Manu National Park (pp. 42-45). There are no Amahuaca in the Manu Park; they live along tributaries of the Urubamba and Ucayali Rivers farther north. The people referred to are Yora, a Yaminahua sub-group, in voluntary isolation until 1984.

Terborgh attributes many of the Manu Park's problems to regionalization (p. 35). But the regional governments in Peru only existed between late 1990 and April 1992, when they were closed by the Fujimori government. The inept Park officials accurately described by Terborgh, although designated and with administration from Cusco, were representatives of the central government, like those who served during "the halcyon days of the park's early period" (p. 31). The inspired Agrarian University professors of that time were in Lima, not in the Manu Park. The Park's director until July 2000, Ada Castillo Ordinola, accurately described as "competent and committed" (p. 38), worked closely, from an NGO, with the Inka Regional Government in planning for more satisfactory Park administration, while that Government lasted. Terborgh praises the policies of the Fujimori Government as enlightened (p.38), but he fails to recognize the failure of that Government to involve local peoples and institutions in planning for and administering the Park in a more effective manner. Democratic processes are clearly not one of Fujimori's strengths.

In Chapter 10, Terborgh makes convincing arguments regarding the limitations of most conservation efforts in recent decades, although he inaccurately describes USAID's role as promoting sustainable development in a manner opposed to conservation (pp. 164-165). Moreover, in chapter 11, he raises important points about the illusions of continuous economic expansion at the expense of nature.

Terborgh correctly calls for "a new paradigm" (Chapter 10) and a coherent public strategy to safeguard nature and its beseiged ecosystems, forests, and biological diversity. However, such a paradigm and strategy are more likely to be successful if they involve people and entire national territories, rather than exclude people from a few unique protected areas that justify, in the public mind, the destruction of natural wealth everywhere outside these areas. Local communities, especially indigenous peoples, are unlikely to accept relocation, as Terborgh advocates, and there is little reason to expect support for the massive public effort that Terborgh calls for on behalf of theoretically pristine natural areas unless they may serve people, including their indigenous inhabitants and other communities in surrounding areas, or even national populations, not just a few privileged scientists from northern hemisphere countires with large research budgets.

In short, "Requiem for Nature" is must reading even for those, like myself, who will be infuriated at the arrogance of some of its proposals. The debate it is inspiring cannot fail to be useful to our understanding of nature and conservation needs.

Thomas Moore; Lima, Peru; moore@terra.com.pe