Healing the Planet

PEOPLE READ for all sorts of reasons, escape and education foremost among them. Then sometimes we need hope, comfort, and inspiration, not necessarily in that order. Recommended reading: "Guardians of the Trees: A Journey of Hope Through Healing the Planet", by Kinari Webb. As a college student, the author visited Borneo when she was twenty one, and fell in love with the natural beauty and with orangutans. She paid close attention, to two kinds of primitive primate culture; orangutan, and human. She noticed the interconnectedness of them. She noticed that extensive logging by both corporations and small farmers was destroying teh orangutan habitat, without providing any discernible prosperity for the people. It occurred to ther that small farmers engaged in killing trees because and only because they were desperate for some of the basic necessities of life; including health care. This realization inpsired her to complete her education at Yale with a double major approach; conservation, and medicine. She returned to Boerneo with diplomas in hand and some loan money, and opened a low cost and free medical climinc for the poor locals. The idea spread. Simultaneously, she spearheaded organizations and movements intended to reduce the extent and impact of deforestation, preaching the message, the very simple and profoundly true message, that forested wilderness habitat is necessary for not only the survival of nature, but also is necessary for humans as part of nature, that we are currently abusing this wonderful gift of nature, but that we can change direction, can reform our behaivor, and can actually heal the damage we have already done. Her book is her personal account of her trials and tribulations in these enterprises, and reads like a good suspense novel, a page turner, keeping the reader engrossed with solving the author's problems by finding out how the author solves them. Among those tribulations was a severe bite from a poisonous jellyfish which forced Kinari Webb to fight for her life in recovery for four years. Her theme, as the title implies, is not "saving" the planet, as we often melodramatically express it. (I am guilty of this). "Healing" is a better word for what we need to do to mother Earth than "saving", which is too self aggrandizing. The theme of the book is "healing the planet", the planet being a living, breathing being, delicately posistioned within nature, whose life can be and is greatly affected by what we humans do. By the time you finish this extraordiantry true, ongoing story, you will likely feel inspired to pesonally contribute to environmental protection, because you will have been persuaded convinincingly that not only can the planet be healed, but that it must be, and that we humans can become good doctors, nurses, caregivers, for each other, and for the Earth.