SAVING AMERICA'S AMAZON

A spirited call for preserving a large, fertile piece of Alabama wilderness that may be unfamiliar to many readers.

As journalist and environmental activist Raines notes many times, the rivers that drain into the Mobile-Tensaw Delta produce a watery haven for wildlife that vastly exceeds in biodiversity many much larger ecosystems: “The 11 states that are drained by the Colorado River system are collectively home to 26 species of fish, while Alabama is home to 450 species.” “When it comes to turtles, the system’s estuary…has eighteen species, more than any other river delta in the world. More than the Amazon. More than the Mekong. More than any other river system on Earth.” The comparisons are not invidious, for, as the author points out after documenting the geological and meteorological reasons for this eco-diversity, Alabama is well behind most states in protecting its lands. If the book were to serve as an extended work of advocacy alone, it would not be any less powerful, but for those who admire both wild lands and nature writing and photography, it has considerable value. Raines has been doing his homework for many years, and he’s found things that no one else knew even existed: the burned hulk of Clotilda, the last ship to bring slaves to the U.S., in 1860; the largest remaining cypress tree, which he calls “the Lord of the Delta,” at a staggering 27 feet in circumference. The author has a strong, urgent case to make. Even as he instructs readers in why preserving such places is essential, Alabama’s plant bogs are being converted to pastures and subdivisions, such that Raines rightly worries that the superlatives he recites proudly will soon be given to records such as the most extinctions within the borders of a single state. E.O. Wilson provides the foreword.

A fine work of environmental journalism that, at just a glance, makes its own open-and-shut argument.