Nafanua: Saving the Samoan Rain Forest

click here for more details, find new or used items	Paul Alan Cox New from £21.43 Used from £12.26 Pages: 236 (Hardcover) ISBN: 0716731169 Pub: W.H.Freeman & Co Ltd Pub date: 1997-12-22 Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 2107116

Reader Reviews:

Great Book! (0/0 people found this helpful)

This is a most interesting book, the story of how the author came to live in Samoa,and fell in love with the people and their tropical forest environment. When faced with a seemingly hopeless situation, namely the destruction of a huge area of tropical forest, the author recounts his experience in helping to save these sacred lands--through purchasing the logging rights from the outsiders who were beginning to bulldoze the forests, and turning the control of the forests over to the local community. The book is filled with fascinating stories, and the people and their forests come alive in its pages. I was particularly moved by Cox's account of living through a typhoon and barely managing to save his family and Samoan friends as the waves continued to pound apart each of the shelters that they took refuge in. A wonderful narrative of live on this remote Pacific Island, of botanical studies, conservation and committment to a cause. Truely this book will be an inspiration for people who are looking for real life heroes--in this case the lineage of elderly healers who have been the guardians of their sacred traditions for thousands of years, who worked with Paul Cox to ensure that their plants, many with profoundly important uses, would be preserved for future generations. I gave this book to several friends. It is, quite simply, a wonderful read.

Great Book! (0/0 people found this helpful)

This is a most interesting book, the stody of how the author came to live in Samoa,and fell in love with the people and their tropical forest environment. When faced with a seemingly hopeless situation, namely the destruction of a huge area of tropical forest, the author recounts his experience in helping to save these sacred lands--through purchasing the logging rights from the outsiders who were beginning to bulldoze the forests, and turning the control of the forests over to the local community. The book is filled with fascinating stories, and the people and their forests come alive in its pages. I was particularly moved by Cox's account of living through a typhoon and barely managing to save his family and Samoan friends as the waves continued to pound apart each of the shelters that they took refuge in. A wonderful narrative of live on this remote Pacific Island, of botanical studies, conservation and committment to a cause. Truely this book will be an inspiration for people who are looking for real life heroes--in this case the lineage of elderly healers who have been the guardians of their sacred traditions for thousands of years, who worked with Paul Cox to ensure that their plants, many with profoundly important uses, would be preserved for future generations. I gave this book to several friends. It is, quite simply, a wonderful read.

I couldn't put the book down!!! (0/0 people found this helpful)

I can attest to what Dr. Cox writes in his book about the unique Samoan culture. As a "palagi" (white person), I lived on the same island he did during Hurricane Ofa and saw the vast destruction that occurred at Falealupo and Asau. Cox truly is a survivor and definitely fit to hold the chief title "Nafanua." I too learned the language and customs of the Samoan people and grew to love them as Dr. Cox has. His insights are very accurate and complimentary of a non-Western culture, and cause one to question the assumptions that Americans make about their paradigms of daily life and what is really important in our fast-paced world of work and living. This is a must-read. I got to bed at 4am after reading it for 9 hours straight... it was so exciting!

A personal story more extraordinary than fiction (0/0 people found this helpful)

Professor Cox, winner of the Goldman Prize and other honors, writes a vivid and very personal first-hand account of life among real people of a remote and alien culture, written as much to remind those indigenous people who have migrated from the South Seas of their heritage, as for the rest of a world ignorant of the preciousness of a pristine rainforest. One must come to admire him for mortgaging his modest home in the U.S.A. to save a species and a treasure of the earth in the South Seas.

His saga of fighting for survival in a week-long hurricane and flood is the stuff of an adventure movie, and yet he writes with a delicately descriptive brush, each chapter framed by beautiful drawings and poetry. His insights on Margaret Mead and anthropology offer an insightful and even humorous sidebar to an extraordinary window on living history.

This true story of the Twentieth Century reminds us of the spirituality in isolation in such tales as "Dances with Wolves&q! uot; and the horror of the hurricane in Neville Shute's "Trustee of the Toolroom." The book should inspire its readers to support the worthy causes of the Seacology Foundation in its efforts to preserve Nature's treasures in the South Seas.

A man deserving of his title (0/0 people found this helpful)

Paul Alan Cox is one of those all to rare individuals who possess extraordinary depths of goodwill and kindness. His love for the subjects of his writing, the Samoan people and the Samoan rainforest comes shining through in this beautifully written account of his time in Samoa. Reading Nafanua is like going on a tour of Samoa with a brilliant tour guide and getting swept up in a great adventure.

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