Stinging Trees & Wait-A-Whiles: Confessions of a Rainforest Biologist

In this amusing memoir, Laurance, a senior research scientist at the Smithsonian, recalls the 18 months he spent doing fieldwork for his dissertation in north Queensland, Australia. A budding ecologist, Laurance traveled from UC Berkeley to the rural outpost of Millaa Millaa (population 320) to study the effects of fragmentation on tropical rainforests. To help with this work, he recruited a band of high-spirited volunteers; here he describes how they gamely faced down biting water rats, stinging trees, leeches and crotch rot--sometimes motivated by little more than the promise of copious amounts of beer, whiskey and barbecue. Laurance recounts the lighter side of fieldwork (food fights help blow off steam and wrestling matches keep his volunteers in line) as well as more serious events, like hostile encounters with local loggers and farmers deeply suspicious of his outspoken proconservation stance. When a fierce political battle erupted over a proposal to create a World Heritage site to protect Australia's remaining rainforests, Laurance found himself in the center of a maelstrom of conflict. Sympathetic and evenhanded, his account blends serious warnings about environmental destruction with humorous observations about the weirdness of field research. Impassioned and accessible to a range of audiences, this is a laugh-out-loud, engaging account of the antics of a clever, impetuous Yank ""gone troppo"" in the Australian outback. Illus. not seen by PW. (Sept.)