About the Author

Alan Rabinowitz is Director of the Science and Exploration Program at the Wildlife Conservation Society based in the Bronx, New York. He is a frequent contributor to Natural History and is the author of two previous books: Jaguar (Island Press, 2000) and Beyond the Last Village (Island Press, 2001).

Reviews

"...one of the best recent books on Thailand. Although essentially the record of a zoologist conserving wild cats in the Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, the book also offers a penetrating account of author Alan Rabinowitz's struggle to come to terms with Thailand and the Thai people."-- "Far Eastern Economic Review"

Rabinowitz is a field biologist and the author of Jaguar ( LJ 12/86), an account of his effort to set up a jaguar preserve in Belize. In 1987, he agreed to survey the wild cats in Thailand's Huai Kha Haeng valley. During his study of leopards, leopard cats, and civets, he befriended monks, forest workers, and other Thais in an effort to understand why practicing Buddhists frequently abused animals and ransacked the forest. He found that Western attitudes about the beauty and value of wildlife ultimately clash with a pragmatic view of nature as commodity in countries where poverty and human suffering is widespread. Walking away with a bleak view of the future for Thailand's forests, Rabinowitz records here the beauty of another natural paradise that may soon be lost. Recommended for general collections in public and academic libraries.-- Beth Clewis, J. Sargeant Reynolds Community Coll. Lib., Richmond, Va.

"...one of the best recent books on Thailand. Although essentially the record of a zoologist conserving wild cats in the Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, the book also offers a penetrating account of author Alan Rabinowitz's struggle to come to terms with Thailand and the Thai people."-- "Far Eastern Economic Review"