Savior of the Rain Forest is the story of Zalvator, a black panther who leads a group of animals on a mission to prevent their land from being destroyed. One day, as Zalvator is surveying for danger from atop the great pyramid, a red parrot named Roko fl ies in with a mysterious injury, too weak to talk. Soon other birds and wild creatures of the rain forest begin arriving and are confused at the sight of the injured parrot. Finally, Roko regains some strength, and he begins to tell the animals surrounding him of the terrible tragedy that had taken place the night before. The red parrot tells the gathering animals that they may be in danger and that the same group that destroyed Roko's home is on their way. It all began when Roko and his friends noticed large machines fl ying in the air that they had never seen before. Soon they found themselves running for their lives as the rain forest they called home was being taken away from them.
Topics covered include the use and conservation of ethnobotanical information, the potential uses of nontimber forest products from various regions of the Neotropics, the development and use of plants as medicines, and the international marketplace for nontimber forest products and how it can best be created and reached. Because of their special significance, a separate section is devoted to uses and potential uses of palm products. Among the contributors are: Al Gentry, Missouri Botanical Garden; Steven R. King, Shaman Pharmaceuticals; Gary Paul Nabhan, Native Seed/SEARCH; Richard Evans Schultes, Botanical Museum of Harvard University; and others from around the globe. Mark Plotkin is vice president for the program in plant conservation, and Lisa Famolare is a program associate at Conservation International, an organization dedicated to the conservation of ecosystems and biological diversity worldwide.
This book contains 15 stories and 48 poems. Four of the stories are works of fiction. Some of the stories, for example, Life on a sugar plantation in colonial Guyana, contain a lot of information of historical significance that has previously been unrecorded and could well be lost in the passage of time. I was born in 1945 on Springlands Sugar Estate where we lived in a small cottage in the estate compound behind and west of the District Commissioners Office building. The story about life on a British colonial sugar plantation is drawn from personal experience and it is told in the voice of someone who actually lived that life. The story entitled: Going to America represents todays reality of Guyanese who have left, leaving, or trying to leave Guyana. The expatriate Guyanese community, particularly in North America, should certainly be able to relate to that experience. Many of my compatriots were forced to undergo a second traumatic deracination for economic and political reasons, lack of opportunity in the homeland, no jobs, no viable future, and other reasons, when they emigrated to Britain, United States of America, Canada, the West Indies, and other places. The ancestors of Afro-Guyanese were dragged out of Africa and brought to the New World as slaves. The forefathers of Indo-Guyanese were lured to British Guiana by deception and false promises and became bound coolies trapped in a form of indentured servitude that some regard as another form of slavery. The second Guyanese uprooting and displacement, though done largely voluntarily, was no less disruptive, frightening, emotionally turbulent, and difficult than the first one either from Africa or India. Life for these people in a new land, very often in hostile climatic conditions quite unlike the tropical conditions in the homeland, was difficult, harrowing, stressful, tumultuous, psychologically traumatic, and distressing for new emigrants. The history of the Guyanese people is written in blood, sweat, tears, suffering, and misery. The children of the new Guyanese diaspora will subsequently have their own story to tell about life in an alien land. It has been said that it is easy for the poor to escape from a poor nation but it is not so easy for them to escape poverty in a rich nation. Emigrants, particularly those of an older generation, who are set in their ways, often experience extreme difficulties acculturating and assimilating into a different society and adjusting to an alien way of life. They are often relegated to a shadowy existence in the marginalized immigrant community standing on the periphery of an alien culture looking in and experiencing loneliness, hopelessness, helplessness, and lacking a sense of belonging. Refer to the poem in this book entitled: Living in a place where you were not born for some insights on this issue. Stories such as: Hunting birds with slingshots in Guyana, Making and flying kites in Guyana, Catching mullet at No. 73 waterside, Notorious fowl thieves of the village, and When you really know it was Christmas time, can elicit strong nostalgia and sentimental memories of youthful experiences so pleasurable and engrossing that it could cause you to yearn for a past life that was simple, care-free, full of wonderful remembrances and recollections. When I think of the wonderful life I once lived at Clonbrook, I am a young lad all over again and I am happy. Those who lived that life and had fond memories of it should certainly share these stories with their children and grandchildren. Make these stories more real and fascinating by adding your own memories and experiences as you read them to your descendants. After all, everybody has a story to tell. There are forty eight poems in this compilation that are sure to evoke emotions and nostalgia. Many deal with subject matters pertaining to the Corentyne. The reason for that is simple. I was born and raised in the Upper Corentyne and I hold lots of treasured an
Eco-Warriors was the first in-depth look at the people, actions, history and philosophies behind the "radical" environmental movement. Focusing on the work of Earth First!, the Sea Shepherds, Greenpeace, and the Animal Liberation Front, among others, Rik Scarce told exciting and sometimes frightening tales of front-line warriors defending an Earth they see as being in environmental peril. While continuing to study these movements as a Ph.D. student, Scarce was jailed for contempt of court for refusing to divulge his sources to prosecutors eager to thwart these groups’ activities. In this updated edition, Scarce brings the trajectory of this movement up to date—including material on the Earth Liberation Front—and provides current resources for all who wish to learn more about one of the most dynamic and confrontational political movements of our time. Literate, captivating, and informative, this is also an ideal volume for classes on environmentalism, social movements, or contemporary politics.
Chad Gibbs has lived his entire life in Alabama, the buckle of America’s Bible Belt, where Christianity is a person’s default setting. In Jesus Without Borders, Gibbs steps outside of his very comfortable existence, to learn what it’s like to be a Christian anywhere else in the world. Over the course of many months, Chad and his Alabama worldview spent time with believers from Beijing to Rio de Janeiro, worshiping with them and observing not only how their faith influences their daily lives but also how their daily lives influence their faith, in hopes of learning which parts of his faith have been compromised by the American Dream. Reflecting on conversations and experiences, Gibbs wrestles with a wide range of questions from his conservative Christian background, including politics and patriotism in the church and how living in Alabama has shaped his views on pacifism, alcohol, and Christ himself. An attempt to extract and examine the biases in the author’s own faith, Jesus Without Borders will have readers questioning if they believe certain things because they are a Christian, or because they are an American, as they meet believers from around the world with differing views on a variety of subjects. Told with Gibbs’ trademark humor, Jesus Without Borders enlightens and entertains, introducing readers to believers around the world in hopes of eliminating prejudices and misconceptions, clearing away the parts of our culture that keep us from seeing a clearer picture of Christ, and living connected to the family of faith around the globe.
Reverend Alabaster Armstrong and his little band of crusaders watched the great walls of Sanctuary Mission sink slowly into the distance. Soon they would be living in hobo jungles and boxcars surrounded by menacing men who would kill within a moment if they knew their mission. As freight trains pulled them southward, Alabaster felt a need for Christ's closeness. Deep in the swamps of southern Louisiana, they boarded a coastal trader that carried them across the Gulf and up the Amazon to Saint Pablo on the Negro River. There they encountered a strange assortment of people that the natives called lizard men. In the deep forest of the Amazon jungle, what lay behind those high, barbed wire fences they found where sirens wailed, Nazi gunboats cruised the river, and those strange men roamed the jungle? It took all of Alabaster's wit as he tried to make some sense of what was going on. Whatever is going on, and whatever those swirling colors on the chameleon men's bodies really are, the Nazis have their hands in it, and Marvin Baggs, that murderous Nazi spy is behind it all. Alabaster can feel it in his bones. What exactly is God calling him to do? Will Baggs finally succeed? Will he successfully kidnap Alabaster's beloved Helen and the other women crusaders? Can Helen and the other women help Alabaster turn the tide on him? Join author Claude Keenam in the exciting and ever-adventurous follow-up to The Search for the Loony Man.
In the mysterious and pristine forests of the tropics, a wealth of ethnobotanical panaceas and shamanic knowledge promises cures for everything from cancer and AIDS to the common cold. To access such miracles, we need only to discover and protect these medicinal treasures before they succumb to the corrosive forces of the modern world. A compelling biocultural story, certainly, and a popular perspective on the lands and peoples of equatorial latitudes—but true? Only in part. In The Ethnobotany of Eden, geographer Robert A. Voeks unravels the long lianas of history and occasional strands of truth that gave rise to this irresistible jungle medicine narrative. By exploring the interconnected worlds of anthropology, botany, and geography, Voeks shows that well-intentioned scientists and environmentalists originally crafted the jungle narrative with the primary goal of saving the world’s tropical rainforests from destruction. It was a strategy deployed to address a pressing environmental problem, one that appeared at a propitious point in history just as the Western world was taking a more globalized view of environmental issues. And yet, although supported by science and its practitioners, the story was also underpinned by a persuasive mix of myth, sentimentality, and nostalgia for a long-lost tropical Eden. Resurrecting the fascinating history of plant prospecting in the tropics, from the colonial era to the present day, The Ethnobotany of Eden rewrites with modern science the degradation narrative we’ve built up around tropical forests, revealing the entangled origins of our fables of forest cures.
Ever since birth we've been told, "we're nobody unless we're number one." But now that we've so dutifully mastered the ability to defend our self-worth, this book shows why we must learn to forget it and redirect search for significance to the one true source of value: Jesus Christ.
