An enlightening and well-balanced account of the potential effects of environmental protections on local communities.
A study of the causes and effects of timber poaching in North America.
Focusing on the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia–based writer and oral historian Bourgon, a 2018 National Geographic Explorer, investigates tree poaching in North America. Much of the author’s account focuses on the small logging town of Orick, California, the southern gateway to Redwood National Park, created in 1968. “While some pinpoint 1968 as the year Orick’s economic troubles began,” writes Bourgon, “it was only the start of a slow change that unfurled over the following decades, sowing the seeds of chronic unemployment, housing decline, and anti-establishment sentiment that smoldered before erupting across the Pacific Northwest in the Timber Wars of the 1980s and 1990s.” While many assumed that the money the town lost from logging would be regained by tourism, it didn’t materialize. In 1976, the Department of Interior proposed expanding the park, a plan opposed by loggers. Many residents felt their concerns were being ignored in favor of those who wanted to protect the forests. “Though opportunities for work existed elsewhere,” writes the author, “a core group…felt so connected to the region that they refused to move after the industry declined.” As a result, timber poaching became a “cultural practice” that reinforced their “once-shared heritage.” Through extensive research, interviews, and diligent boots-on-the-ground reporting, Bourgon evenhandedly examines the many factors involved, including the effects of unemployment on timber communities, including substance abuse and increased crime rates; the ravages of timber poaching on the environment; and the challenges, fears, and dangers faced by law enforcement agencies attempting to capture and prosecute timber poachers. Bourgon also discusses timber poaching in other regions of the world, particularly the Amazon, noting the many similarities to the plight of the Pacific Northwest.
An enlightening and well-balanced account of the potential effects of environmental protections on local communities.Pub Date: June 21, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-316-49744-2
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Little, Brown Spark
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A charming, thoughtful pleasure for any animal lover.
A celebration of animal companions, mammalian, reptilian, avian, and otherwise.
The Ulysses S. Cat of NPR commentator Simon’s title was a “chunky orange Scottish Fold with endearing floppy ears and a broad, flat face that looked…as if he had been running full steam after a mouse when a door opened and…splat!” He may not have been the most photogenic of critters, but he was a steadfast companion to Simon’s mother and stepfather as the latter suffered illness and death. Other creatures populate Simon’s pages: a betta named Salman Fishdie, a grasshopper named Hoppy, many dogs and cats. Simon ranges widely to collect his stories; among the most affecting is a portrait of the people of Sarajevo under siege by Serbian forces, punctuated by an impatient colleague’s saying to Simon, “I do not want to get shot while doing a fucking pet story.” A good point, that, but Simon is emboldened and moved by the Sarajevans’ and U.N. soldiers’ care for pets displaced from their homes. “In making room for animals at the lowest times of their lives,” he writes, “Sarajevo showed the world real humanitarian aid.” In a somewhat lighter turn, Simon voices the hope that the afterlife will involve meeting again with all the animals and people we have loved, with no hard distinction drawn between birds, dogs, cats, turtles, and other beloved animal companions and other members of one’s family, biological and elective. While recognizing that animals make us better humans, holding unconditional love but eschewing grudges, Simon also decries the misuse of animals, particularly in laboratory settings where other modeling methods can be used that do not visit pain and death on such creatures as chimpanzees and white rats. Writes Simon, meaningfully, “Someday, I’m pretty sure we’ll look back on our use of animals in this way as something brutal.” Amen.
A charming, thoughtful pleasure for any animal lover.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781324117186
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
PERSPECTIVES
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