Product Description

“The first time we came here I didn’t know what to expect,” she told me as we paddled upstream. “What we found just blew me away. Jaguars, pumas, river otters, howler monkeys. The place was like a Noah’s Ark for all the endangered species driven out of the rest of Central America. There was so much life! That expedition was when I first saw the macaws.”

As a young woman, Sharon Matola lived many lives. She was a mushroom expert, an Air Force survival specialist, and an Iowa housewife. She hopped freight trains for fun and starred as a tiger tamer in a traveling Mexican circus. Finally she found her one true calling: caring for orphaned animals at her own zoo in the Central American country of Belize.

Beloved as “the Zoo Lady” in her adopted land, Matola became one of Central America’s greatest wildlife defenders. And when powerful outside forces conspired with the local government to build a dam that would flood the nesting ground of the last scarlet macaws in Belize, Sharon Matola was drawn into the fight of her life.

In The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw, award-winning author Bruce Barcott chronicles Sharon Matola’s inspiring crusade to stop a multinational corporation in its tracks. Ferocious in her passion, she and her confederates–a ragtag army of courageous locals and eccentric expatriates–endure slander and reprisals and take the fight to the courtroom and the boardroom, from local village streets to protests around the world.

As the dramatic story unfolds, Barcott addresses the realities of economic survival in Third World countries, explores the tension between environmental conservation and human development, and puts a human face on the battle over globalization. In this marvelous and spirited book, Barcott shows us how one unwavering woman risked her life to save the most beautiful bird in the world.

"Barcott’s compelling narrative is suspenseful right up to the last moment." –Publisher's Weekly

"An engrossing but sad account of a brave and quirky champion of nature."–Kirkus

“…A riveting account of one woman’s fight to save one of the last bastions of an endangered
Species. . . Barcott writes of international politics, ecology and endangered species, and human relations with equal facility. This real page-turner of narrative nonfiction is hard to put down.”
–Booklist

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #178688 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-05
• Released on: 2008-02-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 9.54" h x 1.23" w x 5.83" l, 1.07 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Barcott (The Measure of a Mountain) relates the dramatic and heart-rending story of one woman's struggle to save the scarlet macaw in the tiny country of Belize. Sharon Matola, an eccentric American who directs the Belize Zoo, learned in 1999 that a Canadian power company planned to build a dam that would destroy the habitat of the 200 scarlet macaws remaining in Belize. Helped by native Belizeans and the Natural Resources Defense Council, Matola mounted a six-year campaign against the dam, undaunted by government officials who branded her an enemy of the state and threatened to destroy her zoo by locating a new national garbage dump next to it—a vindictive act halted only when Princess Anne of Great Britain, which gives Belize millions in aid, planned to speak out against it. But the combined forces of a determined corporation and a corrupt government were unrelenting, even after it was revealed that the power company's geological studies of the site were faulty and the dam could put human lives at stake. Barcott's compelling narrative is suspenseful right up to the last moment. (Feb. 12)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine
Contributing editor to Outside magazine and author Bruce Barcott (The Measure of a Mountain: Beauty and Terror on Mount Rainier [1997]) has constructed a gripping and suspenseful account of one woman’s crusade against corrupt foreign governments and multinational corporations to save the habitat of an endangered bird. Barcott’s simple and eloquent prose, vivid descriptions, and ability to render the most complicated business deals and legal concepts in clear layman’s terms allow him to tame this unwieldy tale, which has unexpected twists and turns. The biggest point of divergence? Most critics found Barcott’s many narrative tangents informative, interesting, and even integral to the plot, while others called them tedious and distracting. Though the Chalillo Dam was completed in 2005, Matola’s story proves that one person can make a difference. (The jury is still out on the fate of the scarlet macaws.)
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

From Booklist
Belize is a small Central American country, justifiably famous for its dense forestation. Sharon Matola is an expatriate American, proprietor of the Belize Zoo, the country’s most visited attraction and a scientific research station. The scarlet macaw is a stunning parrot, threatened with extinction throughout Central America (Belize’s population hovers around 200). Fortis, an international energy company, wanted to build a dam that would flood one of Belize’s most teeming river valleys, home to jaguars, tapirs, and a rare subspecies of scarlet macaw. Barcott (The Measure of a Mountain, 1997) brings these four elements together in a riveting account of one woman’s fight to save one of the last bastions of an endangered species, as Matola takes on a powerful corporation and the government of her adopted country. Accompanying Matola as she studied the birds in their imperiled forest home, cared for the animals at her zoo, and fought the good fight, Barcott writes of international politics, ecology and endangered species, and human relations with equal facility. This real page-turner of narrative nonfiction is hard to put down. --Nancy Bent