The End Of The River: Strangling the Rio Sao Francisco

Description

Takes readers from a fisheries patrol boat on the Fraser River to the great Tsukiji fish market in Japan, with stops in Thailand, the Philippines and numerous South American countries. The End of the River is a journey with many companions: some are literary, some imaginary, but most are real characters, human and otherwise, including a six-foot endangered catfish, a Canadian professor with a penchant for Thai bar girls and a chain-smoking Brazilian Brunnhilde. Funny and sad, The End of the River is a brand new take on environmental writing.

Brian Harvey is an international policy and practice expert in aquatic biodiversity. He is the founder and former president and executive director of the World Fisheries Trust. He is the coauthor of Migratory Fishes of South America. He lives in Victoria, British Columbia.

"[A] freewheeling and vividly written essay on the mysteries and longings of what it is to be human in a world of cynicism and loss--and more significantly, what it is to be hopeful, to persevere, in the search for redemption and beauty. . . . "The End of the River" is a brilliant and instructive book, alive with the author's seditious intelligence, his inner compulsions and restlessness, the lot of which are wedded to his literal journey in a way that recalls the travel writing of one of Harvey's heroes, Sir Richard Burton." "--Globe & Mail" "[Brian Harvey] may have created a new literary genre: science travel writing . . . . We rarely expect a scientist to be a great wordsmith; frequently, we don't expect him to be comprehensible. But this West Coast fish biologist writes entertainingly in a variety of modes. Travelogue, autobiography, history, and even fantasy romp alongside the biology." --"Quill & Quire" "A wonderful and engaging read with a samba beat, on the plight of the planet's living waters. "The End of the River" is the book Nemo would write if he could. A great way to open peoples' eyes." --Thomas E. Lovejoy, president, Heinz Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment "Transports the reader to the riverbank. . . . Those who depend on the river are fortunate to have Harvey as their advocate." --"Victoria Times Colonist"