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Jan 13, 2009 | ISBN 9780812973136 Buy
Jan 13, 2009 | ISBN 9781588368003 Buy
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Jan 13, 2009 | ISBN 9780812973136
Jan 13, 2009 | ISBN 9781588368003
Caring for orphaned animals at her own zoo in the tropical country of Belize, Sharon Matola became one of Central America’s greatest wildlife defenders. And when powerful outside forces conspired with the local government to build a dam that would flood the nesting ground of the only scarlet macaws in Belize, Matola was drawn into the fight of her life. In The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw, award-winning author Bruce Barcott chronicles Sharon Matola’s inspiring crusade to stop a multinational corporation in its tracks. Ferocious in her passion, Matila and her confederates–a ragtag army of courageous locals and eccentric expatriates–endure slander and reprisals and take the fight to the courtroom and the boardroom, from local village streets to protests around the globe. Barcott explores the tension between environmental conservation and human development, puts a human face on the battle over globalization, and ultimately shows us how one unwavering woman risked her life to save the most beautiful bird in the world.
“The first time we came here I didn’t know what to expect,” she told me as we paddled upstream. “What we found just blew me away. Jaguars, pumas, river otters, howler monkeys. The place was like a Noah’s Ark for all the endangered species driven out of the rest of Central America. There was so much life! That expedition was when I first saw the macaws.”As a young woman, Sharon Matola lived many lives. She was a mushroom expert, an Air Force survival specialist, and an Iowa housewife. She hopped freight trains for fun and starred as a tiger tamer in a traveling Mexican circus. Finally she found her one true calling: caring for orphaned animals at her own zoo in the Central American country of Belize. Beloved as “the Zoo Lady” in her adopted land, Matola became one of Central America’s greatest wildlife defenders. And when powerful outside forces conspired with the local government to build a dam that would flood the nesting ground of the last scarlet macaws in Belize, Sharon Matola was drawn into the fight of her life. In The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw, award-winning author Bruce Barcott chronicles Sharon Matola’s inspiring crusade to stop a multinational corporation in its tracks. Ferocious in her passion, she and her confederates–a ragtag army of courageous locals and eccentric expatriates–endure slander and reprisals and take the fight to the courtroom and the boardroom, from local village streets to protests around the world. As the dramatic story unfolds, Barcott addresses the realities of economic survival in Third World countries, explores the tension between environmental conservation and human development, and puts a human face on the battle over globalization. In this marvelous and spirited book, Barcott shows us how one unwavering woman risked her life to save the most beautiful bird in the world. "Barcott’s compelling narrative is suspenseful right up to the last moment." –Publisher’s Weekly"An engrossing but sad account of a brave and quirky champion of nature."–Kirkus“…A riveting account of one woman’s fight to save one of the last bastions of an endangeredSpecies. . . Barcott writes of international politics, ecology and endangered species, and human relations with equal facility. This real page-turner of narrative nonfiction is hard to put down.”–Booklist
Bruce Barcott, author of The Measure of a Mountain: Beauty and Terror on Mount Rainier, is a contributing editor at Outside magazine. His feature articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Mother Jones, Sports Illustrated, Harper’s, Utne Reader,… More about Bruce Barcott
“Thrilling . . . Barcott mashes up adventure, nature writing and biography in a steamy climate of corruption and intrigue.”–The New York Times Book Review“An absorbing narrative about an unheralded and faraway environmental battle that speaks volumes about the ways of our world–and how an individual might actually change it. This is a great read and an important story.”–Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food “This fascinating account . . . touches upon greed, corruption, and the legacy of colonialism. . . . Not even Hollywood could invent Sharon Matola [the] plucky American.”–Entertainment Weekly“This real page-turner of narrative nonfiction is hard to put down.”–Booklist“Partly Hiaasen-esque, but real life.”–New York Post“With a plot so multilayered and dramatic that readers will need to remind themselves it’s a true account, the narrative achieves the depth of a case study and the accessible intimacy of a short feature.”–The Miami Herald
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