Ken Finn author of "My Journey With A Remarkable Tree" gives us
pertinent
information on the destruction
of The Brazilian Rainforest. His first book is to be published on FSC certified paper – provenance in the book industry. Ken's
profound journeys have led him to his present passions and activist spirit regarding the Rain Forest.
July 25, 2005
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It’s not often that one reads a passionate activist
manifesto that includes
references to Anthony Perkins in
Psycho, nor is it often that one finds a well written travelogue that compares the Cambodian version of
"Delhi-belly" to Siguorney Weaver’s Alien… but Ken Finn has managed to combine all of this in a remarkable
way that really works. Written with a sly, biting sense of humor, and loaded with amusing cultural references,
this lovely book is a contradiction in many ways. |
Ken Finn |
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My Journey
With a Remarkable
Tree
stands up with the best “Rough Guide” style travelogues, and indeed should be a “must read” for any one headed for
Cambodia, Vietnam or Laos – or any armchair |
traveler who wishes to understand better the indigenous
tribes, the
disturbing
poverty, the role of the government and the level of corruption that is prevalent. Had Ken Finn stopped there, he
would have provided a welcome service.
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However, what sets this book apart and truly elevates it, is Ken Finn’s spiritual
quest, and the passionate
activism that developed in response. The author set out to find the great, old “spirit trees” of Cambodia – the
trees of legend, some hundreds of years old and each said to have a soul, and some able to “hide” or disappear.
These trees are able to sustain whole villages with their resin, which is used for heating and light,
waterproofing boats, or for trading for other hard goods.
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What he found instead was devastation – acres and acres of these
trees
were being illegally cut
down or
burned -- a widespread looting of resources that involved collusion between the government, big business, the
police and even the Forest Rangers whose job it was to protect the trees. Villages that
had prospered
and sustained themselves for centuries by using the resin and not cutting down the trees were suddenly
facing starvation and displacement.
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It was the cutting of a single magnificent tree that
personalized
it for the author and led
him to begin My Journey With A Remarkable
Tree. Working with the aid and advice of local guides and NGO’s that |
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had been monitoring this illegal
deforestation, Mr. Finn followed, as nearly as possible, the route that this single tree would take – a journey
that led him over the border as the tree was smuggled into Vietnam, through the lumber mills which turned his tree
and it’s “brothers and sisters” into garden furniture, and then down to the ports where the containers were marked
for shipping to the UK and the US. Later, when the author
returned
to England, he searched out the likely container ships in Felixstowe, and then visited the local garden center to see “his
tree” on display as a furniture set.
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This is the story of one tree – when we realize that there are thousands of
trees being cut down,
thousands
of acres of forest being stripped and thousands of cubic feet of garden furniture and wood products being shipped to
the affluent countries -- it is almost too much to comprehend. It is to the author’s credit that he found such a heartfelt
and moving way to personalize a phenomenon that is truly scary in its enormity.
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So what’s the lesson in all of this? What can we
do about it? The author
clearly gave this
a good amount of thought. (Mr. Finn’s insight, almost as an aside, that the fear-mongering war-talk of terrorism
threats by
Tony Blair and George W. Bush is all a distraction to keep people from noticing how the powerful are sucking up
the
resources of the weak, is worth the price of the book all by itself.) On a more practical level, the author calls
for
us to get informed, to ask questions before we buy – know the provenance of the goods involved. He gives us
information on the correct labels and certifications to look for. In some cases, he asks us to do nothing –
meaning,
stop shopping! If we stop supporting the almighty market, if we stop consuming to console ourselves, then
there would be no profit in killing these trees.
Part manifesto, part travelogue, this moving and
disturbing story is written with
humor, clarity
and compassion. Ken Finn has done a lovely job of illuminating a bleak and seemingly hopeless issue – and managed
to
put the hope back into it, that we can truly do something to make this a better world. |
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Article courtesy of
www.merliannews.com |
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