A Land on Fire: The Environmental Consequences of the Southeast Asian Boom

By James David Fahn

Book Overview

The future of Earth's environment will be decided in Asia, home to 60 percent of the world's population and some of the world's fastest-growing economies. As an award-winning investigative journalist based in Bankok, James Fahn spent a decade grappling with the challenges facing the region's mega-cities, tropical forests, coastlines, and societies dashing toward modernity. In A Land on Fire , he shares his findings - the profound implications for global issues such as climate change, the loss of biodiversity, and the greening of world trade. He explores Southeast Asia's environmental battles through the eyes of the people fighting them, and recounts his many adventures while covering them. Whether chasing down log smugglers along the Thai-Burmese border, exposing the dumping of toxic mercury into the Gulf of Thailand by multinational oil corporations, or covering the controversy surrounding the filming of the movie The Beach , Fahn provides unique insight into the relationship between sustainable development and democracy, the crippling impact of corruption, and the environmental challenges facing us all.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813342678
• ISBN13: 9780813342672
• Release Date: November 2004
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 1.0" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

A terrific story

Jim Fahn details Thailand's uneasy embrace of globalization in the '90s with a Thomas Friedman-like awareness. He celebrates Southeast Asia's torrid economic rise, its bloody battles for democracy and its struggles for cultural self-determinism with an unflinching eye on the wrecking ball.

Informative and entertaining

Fahn's personal anecdotes add color to his solid research about a country, its people and a culture he got to know well over many years. Personally, I thought it was refreshing to get information from someone who's actually been on the ground and seen a situation -- rather than from someone who draws their conclusions from someone else's study results. He includes info from a variety of sources, but not at the expense of first-hand knowledge. Also liked the way that he explained how he got some of his stories -- what a reporter has to do in a developing country, where corporate interests sometimes make it dangerous just to report on a problem.

A Land on Fire is outstanding - rich in detail and readable

A Land on Fire is a superb book - informative, rich in detail, and readable. It traces Southeast Asia's environmental challenges through a treasure of engaging stories. In the narrative we meet all kinds of people - farmers, fishermen, indigenous leaders, eco tourism operators, loggers, government foresters, journalists, oil riggers. Woven tightly together with journalistic skill, their stories tell us much about the environmental crisis setting upon Southeast Asia. Thailand is a country I have lived in and know well. From the first page to the last, Fahn shows a profound understanding of the country, a respect for its special qualities, and a passion for preserving its environmental heritage.