Customer Reviews

Forgotten Edens: Exploring the World's Wild Places (National Geographic Society Special Publication, Series 26)

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Frans Lanting and Christine Eckstrom, along with the National Geographic Society, are to be heartily congratulated for putting together such a splendid book on the most intriguing wild places on the planet. What a gorgeous book.

With truly spectacular photographs and informative text they explore the misty rain forests of Borneo, home to thousands of species still new to science, domain of the orangutan, the rarely seen rhino, the secretive tarsier, flying frogs and flying snakes, and on Mount Kinabalu, the massive cloud-wreathed peak that dominates northern Borneo, over 3,000 orchid species, a full 10 percent of the world's total. Next they explore frigid and storm-ravaged South Georgia, "one of a scattering of small islands that ring Antarctica like the moons of an icy planet." Here the two show us raucous penguin colonies, thousands of seals, graceful albatrosses, terns, petrels, and more that call this island at the end of the earth home. Then it is on to Hawaii, "the farthest paradise." Born of fiery volcanoes, they are home to unqiue flora such as the 'ama'u fern, first to colonize after lava flows have cooled, and the magnificent silverswords, which breed at ten or fifteen years of age in breathtaking blossoms, and then perish. The animal life is no less impressive here, with thousands of endemic land snails, breathtaking birds such as the brilliant 'i'iwi or the wide-ranging blue-faced booby, and marine creatures such as the Hawaiian monk seal and the green sea turtle. Next they whisk you to Madagascar, a lost world that preserves some of the life from the days of the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana, present during the time of the dinosaurs. This giant island, as this book shows, is home to scores of lemurs (including the playful ringtail and the nocturnal aye-aye), chameleons, bizarre baobab species, geckos, and more, all of which developed in isolation from the rest of the world. The last stop is Okavango, an African widlife paradise in the form of an inland delta and associated wetlands, all in the midst of the harsh Kalahari Desert. Here one can find the largest elephant herd on the planet as well as hippos, lechwes (a type of marsh-dwelling antelope), storks, crocodiles, frogs, flamingos, lions, and other manner of creature great and small.

The greatest thing about the book is obviously the photographs, but the accompanying text is wortwhile too. The text addresses issue of conservation, and provide many interesting facts and information. For instance the section on Madagascar discusses some of the fascinating extinct megafauna (such as elephant birds and giant lemurs) that once existed there.

A great book, a must for any nature lover or anyone who loves exotic destinations.