Although he was 30 only last year, George Monbiot has already done more
to change the world and our perception of it than most of us can hope to
achieve in a lifetime.

First he tackled Irian Jaya, the Indonesian half of the island of New
Guinea, where he exposed one of the most blatant and offensive examples
of colonial oppression this century. He and his photographer companion,
Adrian Arbib, managed to live and travel there undercover: his book, Poisoned
Arrows reveals the full extent of the atrocities for the first time. For
that, the Indonesian government gave him a life sentence in his absence.

Next came Brazil, where the destruction of the rainforest was an issue
too big for many to grasp. Somehow the scale of it all, the confusing social
and environmental messages, the rights of the indigenous inhabitants and
the murder of Chico Mendes clouded our perception of what was really going
on. Monbiot went to the heart of the matter, tracked down the men actually
causing the damage, and very nearly got himself killed for his trouble.
His book, Amazon Watershed, left no one in any doubt about the identity
of the villains and the victims in that story.

Now he has exposed what is going on in Kenya and Tanzania, where the
nomadic people are being driven off their land and systematically murdered
with, once again, catastrophic social and environmental results. As we have
learnt to expect, he pulls no punches, naming names and pointing an unerring
finger at the sinners and their blatant corruption. Yet he writes with such
charm and erudition that no one could mistake this for the ravings of a
fanatic.

This is not, as some reviewers have suggested, a fringe issue, tilting
at insoluble problems and blaming governments for failing to produce miracles.
The question he addresses lies at the very core of what is wrong with the
world today. Are we prepared to allow short-term greed and materialism to
destroy the planet and, inevitably, our ability to survive and thrive on
it? Time and again, clear scientific evidence of the likely effect of development
schemes is ignored or misinterpreted for economic or political ends; the
driving force behind the perversion is corruption. Seldom is this more blatantly
apparent than in East Africa.

Ironically because tourism is such a lucrative business in Kenya, much
of the robbery and destruction is being done in the name of conservation.
Having been driven off their ancestral lands to make way for the tourists,
the Masai are beaten and imprisoned if they let their herds wander back.
Yet their presence has now been found to be positively beneficial to wildlife
and the extraordinary rich mix which draws the tourists is deteriorating.

Far, far worse and less subtle is the way totally unsuitable land is
being stolen by politicians for ploughing up to grow wheat. The massacres
that were instigated to satisfy the same greed, and which the author witnessed,
make one weep.

We need people like Monbiot more than ever before. We need to be told
what is going on, fearlessly and without obfuscation or prevarication. Having
read, we are left in no doubt what needs to be done. The danger facing us
all is that far too few people share his moral courage.

One criticism: the book lacks an index. It is a pity to have so many
names named without being able to look them up.

Robin Hanbury-Tenison is a gold medallist of the Royal Geographical
Society and president of Survival International.

A danger with books like Wild Malaysia that needs stating – do not judge
by appearances – is no criticism of an excellent and comprehensive piece
of work, but a warning to the reader to look closely, think hard and read
between the lines. Malaysia in all its diversity of habitats, but especially
in its rainforest, contains some of the richest ecosystems on earth. The
plants and wildlife, the breathtaking scenery and the diverse people that
live in this favoured piece of the planet are beautifully revealed by Gerald
Cubitt and Junaidi Payne. They tell the story and history of conservation
in the states, protected areas and national parks vividly and comprehensively.
It is an indispensable book for anyone who is interested in visiting more
of Malaysia than its beaches and street markets.

But if you looked only at the pictures, you could easily lull yourself
into a comfortable feeling that all is well with the world, which is a beautiful
and fascinating place. All too often, the same illusion is conjured up by
the equally great photography of National Geographic magazine; it is dangerous
when not accom panied by a forthright and unambiguous text.

So I found it embarrassing to read the preface and foreword where both
the prime minister of the country and the President of WWF Malaysia refer
blandly to the rich diversity and natural heritage of Malaysia and the toll
that development has taken on them. But they then imply that it is acceptable
to settle for some national parks and protected areas as the best that we
can hope will survive. This fatalistic approach simply is not good enough.

I do not criticise the authors, indeed I commend them for the many telling
points with which they subtly seed the text. No one reading it carefully
can fail to realise how grave the situation is, how much there is to lose
and how little time we have to save it. Equally, no one who knows anything
about Malaysia can doubt that it would have been impossible for someone
working in that country to say what needs to be said starkly and unequivocally
and hope to keep his or her job.

The trouble is that most people who buy or see this book will skim the
stunning pictures. These may create or strengthen an interest in the wildlife
of the region and reinforce a general sense of concern that it may be disappearing,
but photographs alone cannot shock him or her into the outrage that many,
many people must feel soon if the wild country is going to be saved.

For too long a fatal combination of factors has conspired to allow gross
exploitation of Third World environments, and sadly Malaysia is no exception.
The struggle to adopt unfamiliar democratic electoral systems based on Western
models has too often led to short-term solutions and the rape of the land,
especially the rainforest. ÐÓ°ÉÔ­´´s and advisors from the old colonial
powers have failed to point out robustly where grave errors of policy were
being made or to criticise corruption and greed for fear of being accused
of neocolonialism. This has allowed the corruption to become endemic among
political leaders, making it difficult to express opposition, especially
so in the case of despised ethnic minorities.

There is a grave sickness in societies that can allow the richest regions
on our planet to be laid wasted in the way which is occurring in this decade,
a sickness that pervades not just the corrupt political regimes which administer
too many of the countries in which these regions lie. The rich nations will
provide the vast majority of the purchasers of this lovely book, but they
are just as guilty. It is their economies and international policies that
fuel the destruction of far off lands. We have to believe and hope that
sanity will prevail in time and that the rapidly growing global awareness,
fuelled by pictures and text such as Wild Malaysia contains, will all help
to change the world in time to save it.

Robin Hanbury-Tenison is President of Survival International, the worldwide
movement to support tribal peoples. Between 1977 and 1978 he led the Royal
Geographical Society’s expedition to the Gunung Mulu National Park in Sarawak.