Reason for hope

Type: Biography Leisure Author: Jane Goodall My rating:  Buy now
Posted by Dominic Book introduction: This is an auto-biography of an amazing and fascinating woman, Dr. Jane Goodall. Very inspiring individual fighting for a cleaner, safer and better world for people, animal and earth for many generations to come. Dr Jane as she is commonly known, is world reknown for her pioneer research on chimpanzee, our closest cousin in the animal kingdom. This book is about how she started that spirital journey that has allowed her to filfull her curiosity and fascination of Africa, through the same journey, she has gained a deep understanding and appreciation of the relationship of mother nature and human beings. The book also described how devastating that we human being, the smartest animal on earth is not taking care of the planet, instead we are destroying it along with the wonderful diversity of living creatures, and we must do something to reverse such destruction and give mother nature a chance to heal. The message of the book is clearly stated in the title, Reason for hope. Despite all the terrible things that are happening around us in the world, there is still reason for hope and we mustn't give up the fight.
My review: I bought this book at a seminar given by Dr. Jane while she was in Hong Kong during December 2005. The title of the seminar was "Why I left the forrest of Gombe", it was a very thought provoking and revealing seminar. It described very different situations around the world from the environment that we know and live in every day and yet we are sharing the same planet that we depend on. I would like to share a few points that I found intriguing from the seminar: - In the anicent world, senior leaders of the tribes made major decisions of important matters in the interests of the whole tribes collectively not in the interest of some corporate. - We own and waste so much things today that we don't need. Clothing in any family in a western country for example, is enough for one tribe in Africa. People used to have very simple need and waste very little. We have seen so much damaged done to our world - all sorts of pollutions, global warming, global climate changes, destruction of environment, cruelty to animals, exploitation of poor countries, aggression of developed countries, rapidly spreading of incurable diseases and the list goes on. While there exists so many problems in our world, I would like to share with you the reasons for hope as told by Dr. Jane (1) The human brain; (2) The Resilience of nature; (3) The energy and enthusiasum that is found or can be kindled among young people worldwide; and (4) The indomitable human spirit. When children learn about rights from wrongs, they are determined to do the right things, educate our young ones properly. Mother nature is resilient, we must give her a chance to heal and she will recover. Human beings are intelligent beings, if we can send people to the moon for fun, we can deal with the problems at home. Dr. Jane kindly signed her autograph on my copy of her book, she wrote - Follow your heart. I hope more people would listen and follow their hearts.

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Replied by irene. My rating: My review: Learn a lot about humanity from this book. Personally I was touched by her thought - "When I came back from the forrect in Gombe to the civilized England, I found all the modern buildings ugly." It reminds me of the countryside and little villages I've been and my joy of losing myself there. It also asks me why I live in a city?!