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Wild Thailand, a highly recommended book |
 Wild Thailand is the kind of book that every nature lover in Thailand will enjoy. Not since Wildlife in the Kingdom of Thailand by L. Bruce Kekule have I seen a book covering Thailand's most wild, remote and beautiful locations that documents not only the remarkable flora but the fauna also. As Thai nature lovers and the environmentally concerned know, some of Thailand's most impressive and rare animals are under extreme threat due to habitat loss. Reading this book and perusing the photographs gives one hope - that it is still not late to conserve what is left of Thailand's stunning bio-diversity - if we care enough.
The book journey's through some of Thailand's prime natural forests and parks including Khao Yai, Thung Yai, Hala Bala, Khao Soi Dao, Phu Luang, Mae Wong, Khao Ang Ru Nai, and the most celebrated of all, Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary.
Wild Thailand is the fifth volume in a series celebrating the earth's great wilderness areas, illustrated by one of the world's leading natural history photographers, Gerald Cubitt. Like its companion volumes on Indonesia, India, Malaysia, and New Zealand, it is richly illustrated with over 400 full-color photographs. Chapters focus on each area of the country in turn, with an emphasis on environmental threats and conservation programs.
Thailand is a country of seemingly infinite variety, containing almost every habitat variation found in tropical Asia, from dry tropical pine forests in the mountainous north, through flood plains in the central region, to wet evergreen forests in the steamy south. The coasts boast mangrove swamps and stunning coral reefs.
The country also harbors some 27,000 flower species - an estimated 10 percent of the world's total - along with over 900 bird species. It is, in effect, a bio-geographic gateway through which the ecological elements of the surrounding countries have met and merged, creating a natural potpourri that is not found anywhere else.
The author, Belinda Stewart-Cox worked in Thailand's Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, the first, and to date only Natural World Heritage Site in mainland Southeast Asia. Her pragmatic review of conservation for the future and her noting of ideas to increase the teaching of conservationism through Buddhism really inspired me. John Hoskin is a freelance writer and journalist who lives in Bangkok. Gerald Cubitt, who has taken the photographs for all of the volumes in the series, spent many months traveling in Thailand in order to portray the remarkable richness and diversity of the landscape, fauna, and flora.
This is definitely a book I whole-heartedly recommend to anyone even remotely interested in Thailand's nature, fauna and flora, conservation areas and National Parks. Let's hope it will remain for us to enjoy in reality as we can through this book.
# Hardcover: 208 pages
# Publisher: The MIT Press; 1st Mit Pr edition
# Language: English
# ISBN-10: 0262193647
# ISBN-13: 978-0262193641
# Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 10 x 1 inches
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