THE MERCENARY NATURALIST

A debut memoir focuses on a globe-trotting ecologist.

In this book, Reagan shares stories from his decades of working as an ecologist and consultant in a career that was both physically and metaphorically wide-ranging. The memoir opens in 1977 in Senegal, where the author made his first trip overseas to assess the environmental impacts of a major infrastructure project. He contended with unfamiliar languages and customs, dangerous animals, officious bureaucrats, and budget-conscious project managers while putting his skills to use and doing work that had a significant effect on the lives and livelihoods of thousands of people. In subsequent chapters, Reagan recounts traveling to various locations, including Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Eritrea, the Philippines, and Indonesia, working in academia and industry to understand how the different environments functioned, how plants and animals were affected by development, and how ecological needs could be balanced against economic realities to benefit as many organisms as possible. The author takes note of the technological and cultural shifts he observed over the decades of his career and demonstrates his own professional development. When he recalls being unexpectedly placed in charge of an entire project—instead of his usual environmental assessments—the book shifts to a more big-picture narrative, following Reagan’s efforts to unite a heterogeneous group of stakeholders whose interests were often at odds with one another. In the volume’s final chapter, the author revisits each project, doing his best to find out what happened in the decades since his work was completed and assessing the successes and failures.

Reagan is a strong storyteller with a wealth of material to draw from, and he does an excellent job of bringing his adventures to the page. While there is plenty of science in the book, it is always presented in a way that is accessible to nonspecialist readers and blends in among the author’s tales of taking down a venomous snake with improvised equipment, learning to fuse his scientific data with the expertise of his local assistants, successfully communicating despite limited language skills, and narrowly avoiding close encounters with large beasts. The prose is generally straightforward and down-to-earth, but when Reagan allows himself an occasional flight of descriptive fancy (“A profusion of colors dazzles the eyes, ranging from the bright fruits in markets to the flamboyant plumage of cordon bleu finches and red bishop weaver birds around muddy puddles in dirt streets”), the result is delightfully vivid. The author is a keen observer of the unfamiliar environments he found himself in, and despite some questionable adjectives (such as the “woolly” or “kinky” hair of some of the people he meets), he deftly dramatizes his far-flung experiences without exoticizing them. Although Reagan is telling his own story, he is generous to colleagues, and readers are never left imagining that he set off into the wilderness by himself or made unaided scientific discoveries. The memoir also takes a thoughtful approach to the intersection of economic development and environmental protection, offering appreciations to companies that acted responsibly and suggestions for future collaborations.

An engrossing look at an intriguing career in ecology.