A Land of Ghosts - Hardcover

Campbell, David G.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 022404074X ISBN 13: 9780224040747

Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd, 2005

Synopsis

For thirty years David Campbell has been conducting ecological studies in the Brazilian Amazon. It is a place of extraordinary abundance: in the eighteen hectares of rainforest Campbell has studied are 20,000 individual trees of about 2,000 species - three times as many species of trees as there are in all of North America. And each tree is an ecosystem in itself, bearing fungi, lichens, mosses, reptiles, mammals, birds, spiders, scorpions, beetles and uncountable legions of insects. Campbell knows each tree on his study sites as an individual. River of Light is the story of the Amazonian rainforest of Brazil, its flora and fauna, and of the people who try to live on this frontier so vast that they seem eclipsed by it - the colonists from eastern Brazil, the caboclos who eke out a living in the river or forest, and the Native Americans, who once understood every nuance of the forest and had a name for every one of its species, but are now dislocated and confused, coveting Western ways but unable to grasp them. These people, wittingly or unwittingly, are destroying the forest, and Campbell's book is at once a description of a world that is vanishing fast and a plea for its survival. In The Crystal Desert, his first, highly-praised book, David Campbell wrote about Antarctica, a place where only a handful of species have managed to climb ashore and survive. In the Amazon Valley there are more species of lichens, liverworts, mosses and algae on a single palm leaf than there are growing on the entire continent of Antarctica. It is a fine canvas for Campbell to paint his extraordinary word pictures upon.

About this title

About the Author:

David G. Campbell is an ecologist and explorer who has carried out research on all seven continents, most notably in the Amazonian rainforests and in Antarctica. He is the Henry R. Luce Professor of Nations and the Global Environment at Grinnell College, Iowa. The Crystal Desert, Campbell's book about the Antarctic Peninsula, was published by Cape in 1993.

Review:

"A beautifully written book." -- Stephen Lacey * Telegraph *

About this edition

• Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 022404074X
• ISBN 13: 9780224040747
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 95