An informative and well-documented story for readers interested in the intersection of business and ecology.
How a group of surfers and Central American villagers banded together to fight a multinational company and save an environmentally fragile stretch of Costa Rican shoreline.
Pavones was a forgotten Costa Rican backwater located on the Golfo Dulce at the southern end of the country. “[S]ocial castaways” of every stripe found a home there, while surfers could ride waves that were “the stuff of surfing lore.” By the mid-2000s, however, the town became the setting for an epic battle between Granjas Atuneras, a company that sought to establish the world’s first yellow-fin tuna farm at the mouth of the Golfo Dulce, and a motley assortment of poor townspeople, surfers, and ex-felons. Drawn by the classic “David versus Goliath” narrative that pitted haves against have-nots, Evans (English/Lake Tahoe Community Coll.; In Search of Powder: A Story of America’s Disappearing Ski Bum, 2010) began to report on the people and events that made the story so compelling to him. Among the many interesting individuals he met was Danny Fowlie, a former surf enthusiast and convicted drug smuggler who put Pavones on the map by building roads, a hospital, a cantina, and an exclusive ranch. He also interviewed the head of Granjas Atuneras, Eduardo Velarde, a businessman-turned-aquaculturalist who wanted to “follow in the footsteps” of underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau by establishing fish farms to feed the world demand for seafood. As the battle between anti- and pro-fishery proponents unfolded, Evans uncovered fascinating back stories about fishing practices that have led to the serious depopulation of different tuna varieties and bitter quarrels over money and property rights that led to Fowlie’s personal downfall. The author's deep engagement with the narrative more than makes up for his “[in]experience in writing about surfing and aquaculture.” However, the narrowness of the book’s focus will likely limit its overall appeal to readers.
An informative and well-documented story for readers interested in the intersection of business and ecology.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8032-4689-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Univ. of Nebraska
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2015
The book is not entirely negative; final chapters indicate roads of reversal, before it is too late!
It should come as no surprise that the gifted author of The Sea Around Usand its successors can take another branch of science—that phase of biology indicated by the term ecology—and bring it so sharply into focus that any intelligent layman can understand what she is talking about.
Understand, yes, and shudder, for she has drawn a living portrait of what is happening to this balance nature has decreed in the science of life—and what man is doing (and has done) to destroy it and create a science of death. Death to our birds, to fish, to wild creatures of the woods—and, to a degree as yet undetermined, to man himself. World War II hastened the program by releasing lethal chemicals for destruction of insects that threatened man’s health and comfort, vegetation that needed quick disposal. The war against insects had been under way before, but the methods were relatively harmless to other than the insects under attack; the products non-chemical, sometimes even introduction of other insects, enemies of the ones under attack. But with chemicals—increasingly stronger, more potent, more varied, more dangerous—new chain reactions have set in. And ironically, the insects are winning the war, setting up immunities, and re-emerging, their natural enemies destroyed. The peril does not stop here. Waters, even to the underground water tables, are contaminated; soils are poisoned. The birds consume the poisons in their insect and earthworm diet; the cattle, in their fodder; the fish, in the waters and the food those waters provide. And humans? They drink the milk, eat the vegetables, the fish, the poultry. There is enough evidence to point to the far-reaching effects; but this is only the beginning,—in cancer, in liver disorders, in radiation perils…This is the horrifying story. It needed to be told—and by a scientist with a rare gift of communication and an overwhelming sense of responsibility. Already the articles taken from the book for publication in The New Yorkerare being widely discussed. Book-of-the-Month distribution in October will spread the message yet more widely.
The book is not entirely negative; final chapters indicate roads of reversal, before it is too late!Pub Date: Sept. 27, 1962
ISBN: 061825305X
Page Count: 378
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1962
APPRECIATIONS
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.
A study of swimming as sport, survival method, basis for community, and route to physical and mental well-being.
For Bay Area writer Tsui (American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods, 2009), swimming is in her blood. As she recounts, her parents met in a Hong Kong swimming pool, and she often visited the beach as a child and competed on a swim team in high school. Midway through the engaging narrative, the author explains how she rejoined the team at age 40, just as her 6-year-old was signing up for the first time. Chronicling her interviews with scientists and swimmers alike, Tsui notes the many health benefits of swimming, some of which are mental. Swimmers often achieve the “flow” state and get their best ideas while in the water. Her travels took her from the California coast, where she dove for abalone and swam from Alcatraz back to San Francisco, to Tokyo, where she heard about the “samurai swimming” martial arts tradition. In Iceland, she met Guðlaugur Friðþórsson, a local celebrity who, in 1984, survived six hours in a winter sea after his fishing vessel capsized, earning him the nickname “the human seal.” Although humans are generally adapted to life on land, the author discovered that some have extra advantages in the water. The Bajau people of Indonesia, for instance, can do 10-minute free dives while hunting because their spleens are 50% larger than average. For most, though, it’s simply a matter of practice. Tsui discussed swimming with Dara Torres, who became the oldest Olympic swimmer at age 41, and swam with Kim Chambers, one of the few people to complete the daunting Oceans Seven marathon swim challenge. Drawing on personal experience, history, biology, and social science, the author conveys the appeal of “an unflinching giving-over to an element” and makes a convincing case for broader access to swimming education (372,000 people still drown annually).
An absorbing, wide-ranging story of humans’ relationship with the water.Pub Date: April 14, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-786-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
