Customer Reviews

Guide to Wetlands

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I salute Dr. Patrick Dugan who generously put together an enormous amount of encyclopedic information in his recent book, "GUIDE TO WETLANDS."

Among a tremendously comprehensive awareness about our universal ecological systems, "GUIDE TO WETLANDS" specifically highlights the importance of "The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands," as Dr. Dugan emphasizes the importance of this monumental achievement that brought about together the agreements of a small number of internationally concerned participants, in 1971, who produced a set of guidelines that's developed into a major force of wetland conservation throughout the world--a historically global achievement, per se, and of particular in the life of a small city named Ramsar, in north of Iran!

I know Ramsar well (now called with the original name: Sakhtsar). I was born only a half-hour drive west of this beautiful city, with serene surroundings and natural beauties, in the midst of the southern shore of Caspian Sea. Ramsar (Sakhtsar) is flanked by the most lush and fertile strip of a low-land-region that's squeezed between the south shore of Caspian Sea and the northern face of the mountain range Alborz: with natural forests, hot springs, tea plantations, citrus groves, olive orchards and abundant rice paddies (capable of feeding 200-million population), along wetlands that're accurately noted by Dr. Dugan! Also, I've worked and managed a major ground-up development project, not so far away on the east of Ramsar/(Sakhtsar).

Nonetheless, despite of all the related academic background and several decades of hands-on participations on design boards and construction trenches, internationally, I've sadly witnessed the gradual demise of our only Planet Earth's natural resources and ecological systems under the guise of growth and economic development!

Hence, for those who care to reverse these suicidal trends through the acts of preservation, conservation, mitigation, or self-education concerning our global environments, I highly recommend starting with Dr. Patrick Dugan's "GUIDE TO WETLANDS." It's delightfully written and extremely enlightening--far beyond just a vacation guidebook!

On p. 268 Dugan refers to "Alakai Swamp on Maui." It is on Kauai. I have been there a dozen times. I am wondering about the accuracy of the rest of the book. Fernando Peñalosa, Rancho Palos Verdes, California.