Portraits of the Rainforest

Victor Clulow is a professor of zoology at Laurentian University.

Forsyth and photographers Michael and Patricia Fogden are biologists
with advanced academic qualifications, and with experience in the
subjects this volume deals with. Their education, skills, and devotion
make for a dynamite book.

The book consists of 16 essays, a foreword by E.O. Wilson, a preface
that sets the scene, and suggestions for further reading. The essays are
gems, both of text and of illustration, dealing with topics ranging from
the abstractly biological (diversity and nutrient cycles in tropical
forests), through the more concrete but still biological (frog
reproduction, prehensile tails, protective coloration, and chemical
defences), to the philosophical or social (preservation of forest
regions and watersheds, indigenous knowledge, and ethnopharmacology).
Each essay is well formed, confidently written with detail and depth,
and illustrated with fresh and sparkling photographs.

The essays’ common thread is that we understand only a fraction of
the tropical rainforest’s complexity and fragility, yet we are sacking
these forests. The process of destruction is humming along; huge areas
have gone already, and there is little hope of reviving what has been
lost, at least for tens of thousands of years, if ever.

It would be difficult to improve on Wilson’s foreword, which captures
the book’s spirit in the following words: “Portraits of the
Rainforest represents much more than simple nature writing. It calls
attention to the best of this planet and to the compelling reasons why
we should look south, inland, to the forest of dreams. Then we can
remember in the deepest sense where this race came from and why life
itself, and not just Earth itself, is home.”

The book should appeal to casual readers and to children, because of
its illustrations, good writing, and directness; to amateur biologists
or committed environmentalists for those same reasons plus its
thoughtfulness; and to professional scientists, who may find its
freshness a pleasant thrill compared to the staleness and repetition so
common in the environment/conservation/natural history genre today. This
book is a treat.