Nature Photography

Last Place on Earth

5 stars (This book is a timeless keepsake) - I highly recommend this book. The pictures are beautiful and some are disturbing. It truely tells the amazing story of Africa. 5 stars (An Extraordinary Treasure) - This "boxed set", consisting of a large case containing two extraordinary books, is one of the most satisfying purchases I have ever made. In case you don't know, here is the background on the " Last Place on Earth ": Mike Fay is a scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society who, outraged at destruction Congo Basin forests, decided to walk across the heart of Africa in order to document the undisturbed wild before it was lost. Over a year later, after innumerable hardships, wonders and adventures, Fay finally emerged from the forest to the waters of the Atlantic, ready to report back to the world what he had learned. Fay's stories and Nichols' photographs of this "megatransect" were so affecting that Gabon's president, in an unprecedented boon to world conservation, decided that his country's forests had value beyond their timber and designated vast tracts of Gabon as new national parks. The first and much larger of the two books in this set, contains at least 100 full-color, full-page photographs of the landscapes, animals and peoples of the African forests. The photographs are amazing: gritty and beautiful. They are the closest thing to being there. The second book contains black and white photos of Fay and his troop as they make their way across the Congo, and text by Fay himself. We learn how Fay came to be infatuated with saving the wilds as a teenager at a Maine summer camp, and how he came up with the idea of the megatransect, how he endured it, and how he was able to use such a "stunt" to create enormous changes in Gabon. In the end, Fay seems to be the environmental version of Gandhi: gaunt, with a line in his eyes, an unbreakable will, and a singular focus on protecting what is most precious to him: wild nature. If the nearly, $1...
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