Zusatztext Thrilling . . . Barcott mashes up adventure! nature writing and biography in a steamy climate of corruption and intrigue. The New York Times Book Review An absorbing narrative about an unheralded and faraway environmental battle that speaks volumes about the ways of our worldand how an individual might actually change it. This is a great read and an important story. Michael Pollan! author of In Defense of Food This fascinating account . . . touches upon greed! corruption! and the legacy of colonialism. . . . Not even Hollywood could invent Sharon Matola [the] plucky American. Entertainment Weekly This real page-turner of narrative nonfiction is hard to put down. Booklist Partly Hiaasen-esque! but real life. New York Post With a plot so multilayered and dramatic that readers will need to remind themselves it's a true account! the narrative achieves the depth of a case study and the accessible intimacy of a short feature. The Miami Herald Informationen zum Autor Bruce Barcott Klappentext Caring for orphaned animals at her own zoo in the tropical country of Belize, Sharon Matola became one of Central America's greatest wildlife defenders. And when powerful outside forces conspired with the local government to build a dam that would flood the nesting ground of the only scarlet macaws in Belize, Matola was drawn into the fight of her life. In The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw, award-winning author Bruce Barcott chronicles Sharon Matola's inspiring crusade to stop a multinational corporation in its tracks. Ferocious in her passion, Matila and her confederates-a ragtag army of courageous locals and eccentric expatriates-endure slander and reprisals and take the fight to the courtroom and the boardroom, from local village streets to protests around the globe. Barcott explores the tension between environmental conservation and human development, puts a human face on the battle over globalization, and ultimately shows us how one unwavering woman risked her life to save the most beautiful bird in the world.Chapter 1 I f you feel a need to escape the law, elude creditors, hide assets, or shed the skin of your humdrum life, you could do worse than run away to Belize. Belize is a tiny nation tucked between Guatemala, Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea. It's firmly attached to Central America but considers itself a Caribbean island, like a chicken that thinks it's a duck. For more than a hundred years Belize was known as British Honduras, one of the most remote outposts of the British Empire, which explains why it's the only Latin American nation to embrace English as its official language. It's difficult to overstate the smallness of the place. Imagine a country the size of Massachusetts with the population of Corpus Christi, Texas. Give it an army of seven hundred soldiers and a seat in the United Nations and you start to get an idea of Belize. Centuries ago more than one million Maya populated this part of Central America. Today fewer than three hundred thousand Belizeans spread themselves among the country's river towns and tin-shack villages. Two-thirds of the country is covered by jungle. Belize goes unnoticed by the rest of the world, and over the years the country has parlayed its obscurity into an attractive asset. For those shipwrecked on the shoals of life, Belize offers a new beginning. The country teems with adventurous refugees who've set up shop in the middle of the Central American jungle. British innkeepers, Mennonite farmers, Chinese shopkeepers, Lebanese entrepreneurs, American missionaries, Canadian aid workers, and Dutch scientists live peacefully alongside the nation's longer- established residents, the Garifuna artists, Maya cacao growers, Mestizo plantation managers, and Creole politician...

8220;Thrilling . . . Barcott mashes up adventure, nature writing and biography in a steamy climate of corruption and intrigue.”

–The New York Times Book Review

“An absorbing narrative about an unheralded and faraway environmental battle that speaks volumes about the ways of our world–and how an individual might actually change it. This is a great read and an important story.”
–Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food

“This fascinating account . . . touches upon greed, corruption, and the legacy of colonialism. . . . Not even Hollywood could invent Sharon Matola [the] plucky American.”
–Entertainment Weekly

“This real page-turner of narrative nonfiction is hard to put down.”
–Booklist

“Partly Hiaasen-esque, but real life.”
–New York Post

“With a plot so multilayered and dramatic that readers will need to remind themselves it’s a true account, the narrative achieves the depth of a case study and the accessible intimacy of a short feature.”
–The Miami Herald

Auteur

Bruce Barcott

Texte du rabat

Caring for orphaned animals at her own zoo in the tropical country of Belize, Sharon Matola became one of Central America's greatest wildlife defenders. And when powerful outside forces conspired with the local government to build a dam that would flood the nesting ground of the only scarlet macaws in Belize, Matola was drawn into the fight of her life.

In The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw, award-winning author Bruce Barcott chronicles Sharon Matola's inspiring crusade to stop a multinational corporation in its tracks. Ferocious in her passion, Matila and her confederates-a ragtag army of courageous locals and eccentric expatriates-endure slander and reprisals and take the fight to the courtroom and the boardroom, from local village streets to protests around the globe. Barcott explores the tension between environmental conservation and human development, puts a human face on the battle over globalization, and ultimately shows us how one unwavering woman risked her life to save the most beautiful bird in the world.

Échantillon de lecture
Chapter 1

I f you feel a need to escape the law, elude creditors, hide assets, or shed the skin of your humdrum life, you could do worse than run away to Belize. Belize is a tiny nation tucked between Guatemala, Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea. It’s firmly attached to Central America but considers itself a Caribbean island, like a chicken that thinks it’s a duck. For more than a hundred years Belize was known as British Honduras, one of the most remote outposts of the British Empire, which explains why it’s the only Latin American nation to embrace English as its official language.

It’s difficult to overstate the smallness of the place. Imagine a country the size of Massachusetts with the population of Corpus Christi, Texas. Give it an army of seven hundred soldiers and a seat in the United Nations and you start to get an idea of Belize. Centuries ago more than one million Maya populated this part of Central America. Today fewer than three hundred thousand Belizeans spread themselves among the country’s river towns and tin-shack villages. Two-thirds of the country is covered by jungle.

Belize goes unnoticed by the rest of the world, and over the years the country has parlayed its obscurity into an attractive asset. For those shipwrecked on the shoals of life, Belize offers a new beginning. The country teems with adventurous refugees who’ve set up shop in the middle of the Central American jungle. British innkeepers, Mennonite farmers, Chinese shopkeepers, Lebanese entrepreneurs, American missionaries, Canadian aid workers, and Dutch scientists live peacefully alongside the nation’s longer- established residents, the Garifuna artists, Maya cacao growers, Mestizo plantation managers, and Creole politicians who make up the majority of the country’s population. Belize draws the eccentric, the madcap, and the downright mad…