Book About the Wild Bird Trade Wins Malott Prize for Recording Community Activism

The Langum Charitable Trust named Bruce Barcott, author of The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw: One Woman's Fight to Save the World's Most Beautiful Bird, the first winner of its biannual Gene E. & Adele R. Malott Prize for Recording Community Activism. The author receives $1,500, and $1,000 is donated to the underlying project of community activism. Find this book in our catalog

This is what it says in a review in our catalog: "Barcott (The Measure of a Mountain) relates the dramatic and heart-rending story of one woman's struggle to save the scarlet macaw in the tiny country of Belize. Sharon Matola, an eccentric American who directs the Belize Zoo, learned in 1999 that a Canadian power company planned to build a dam that would destroy the habitat of the 200 scarlet macaws remaining in Belize. Helped by native Belizeans and the Natural Resources Defense Council, Matola mounted a six-year campaign against the dam, undaunted by government officials who branded her an enemy of the state and threatened to destroy her zoo by locating a new national garbage dump next to it—a vindictive act halted only when Princess Anne of Great Britain, which gives Belize millions in aid, planned to speak out against it. But the combined forces of a determined corporation and a corrupt government were unrelenting, even after it was revealed that the power company's geological studies of the site were faulty and the dam could put human lives at stake. Barcott's compelling narrative is suspenseful right up to the last moment. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved."

You may like these other books on animal rights and on environmental activism:
Cape Wind : money, celebrity, class, politics, and the battle for our energy future on Nantucket Sound by Wendy Williams and Robert Whitcomb.
"When Jim Gordon set out to build a wind farm on Cape Cod, he could not imagine the firestorm that would erupt. Steeped in history and local color, this is also a cautionary tale about how money can hijack democracy while America lags behind the rest of the developed world in adopting clean energy." (catalog notes)
The Ten Trusts : what we must do to care for the animals we love by Jane Goodall and Marc Bekoff.
"Jane Goodall and Marc Bekoff (biology, U. of Colorado, Boulder) have formulated a list of ten trusts, each described here with numerous examples, which, if adopted, they believe would transform humankind's relation with nature. In the process, they address many issues, including animal research, ecotourism, zoo management, wearing fur, and the importance of an attitude of activism rather than passivity. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)" (catalog notes)
The Human, the Orchid, and the Octopus : exploring and conserving our natural world by Jacques Cousteau and Susan Schiefelbein.
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