Sanctuaries: Parks, Preserves, and Places of Refuge in the World - Softcover

Sanctuaries: Parks, Preserves and Places of Refuge in the Worldchronicles some of the world’s well known and not-so-well known lands under conservation.

Traveling the ring road in Iceland, birding the Mindo Cloud Forest in Ecuador, turtling the Galapagos, colliding with black bears in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania, spotting the Abyssinia wolf in Bale Mountains National Park of Ethiopia, searching for flamingos in the Argentinean Andes, and discovering a whooping crane along the Platte River, Sanctuaries describes the author’s encounters with endangered and threatened species.

In Tunisia the flamingos of Djerba, and in the Baja, gray whales are offered protection in coastal preserves. The west coast of Mexico with its hauntingly beautiful mangrove swamps protects the four species of mangroves and the mangrove forest’s diverse fauna. Norway and Finland’s taiga, tundra, and fjords offer sanctuary to reindeer and various arctic birds. Mayan ruins and fincas of Guatemala reflect some of the best conservation efforts in Central America, while Colombia’s Paujil Bird Reserve presents one of South American’s most recent rainforest preserve and finest bird sanctuary. Southern Africa’s game parks, both the well-known Etosha and Chobe, as well as private reserves such as Epako, protect species of large mammals and illustrate ecotourism as a means of financial support for conservation. Remote northeast India’s parks include Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary in the Himalayas, and Kaziranga National Park and Nameri National Park in the flood plains of the Brahmaputra.

Woven into the narrative are the many ways sanctuaries have been created and maintained. Implicit in the accounts are tangible affirmation of our efforts to maintain earth’s biodiversity by habitat protection.