A simple black and white map pinpoints the exact location of Millaa
Millaa, a tiny township situated in the locality of Cairns and the
rural towns of the Atherton Tableland, which holds the last
remnants of Australian rainforest in tropical Queensland, in its
grasp. An excited and energetic young man by the name of William
Laurance is gathering information from this rich and diverse
landscape, which embraces a great variety of plants and creatures,
from great white-tailed rats to green ringed-tail possums whose
eyes glow in bright light. Some of this ecology is primitive, and
much of it is found nowhere else on Earth. This perspective and
often humorous book reveals how Laurance, an unconventional
scientist, whilst accumlating evidence of the human impact on
tropical ecosystems, (at present rates, land the equivalent of 70
football fields are destroyed every 60 seconds), lived amongst
farmers and loggers, witnessing first-hand how the reality of
conversation issues affected individuals and their daily lives.
Laurance offers lessons in history, biology, the intricacy of field
work relationships and a violent and bitter conversation battle
against World Heritage, which shocked and split apart an
increasingly judgmental town. Interspersed with incredible pictures
that depict the vast range and complexity of this beautiful but
fragmented and endangered rainforest, his book paints a very
important picture. Allowing us a valuable insight not only into the
ccomplexity of the tropical rainforests and the indigenous life
within them but also the incredibly real and devastating issues
that threaten their very existence. Surprisingly, we still have
time to join the fight to save this irreplaceable enviroment -
although the clock is ticking and time is quickly running out.
(Kirkus UK)
The last traces of Australia's tropical rainforest, where the
southeasterly winds bring rain to the coastal mountains, contain a
unique assemblage of plants and animals, some primitive, many that
are found nowhere else on earth. And fifteen years ago, they also
contained Bill Laurance, a budding ecologist seduced by the nature
of the landscape in north Queensland. Laurance isn't your typical
scientist: he wears cut-offs instead of white coats, enjoys the
occasional food fight, and isn't afraid to speak his mind, even if
it gets him into trouble, as it often did in the Australian
rainforest and as he recounts in his marvelous Queensland journal
"Stinging Trees and Wait-a-Whiles,"
As Laurance writes in the preface, the book is "not a typical
account about scientific research--at least I hope not, for my
colleagues' sake. Rather, it is a story about the joys and agonies
of fieldwork, about zany characters and a wild clash of cultures."
Laurance did his fieldwork and encountered these characters and
cultures in a tiny town of loggers and farmers, a place where
conservation issues have a direct impact on individual lives. He
found himself at the center of a bitter battle over conservation
strategies and became not only the subject of small-town gossip but
also the object of many residents' hatred. Keeping ahead of his
high-spirited young volunteers, hounded by the drug-sniffing local
policeman, and all the while trying to further his own research
amid natural and unnatural obstacles, Laurance offers us a personal
and hilarious account of fieldwork and life in the Australian
outpost of Millaa Millaa. "Stinging Trees and Wait-a-Whiles" is a
biology lesson, a conservation primer, and anutterly energetic
story about an impressionable young man who wound up at the
epicenter of an issue that tore a small town apart.
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