by Robin Hanbury-Tenison
Finding Eden tells of Borneo’s beauty before deforestation destroyed the island. Forty years ago the interior of Borneo was once a Garden of Eden, a pristine, virgin rainforest inhabited by indigenous tribes and naive, virtually tame, wildlife.
Robin Hanbury Tenison OBE, DL is the doyen of British explorers. He led one of the largest ever Royal Geographical Society expeditions, an extraordinary undertaking which triggered the global rainforest movement and illuminated, for the first time, how vital rainforests are to our planet.
For 15 months, Hanbury Tenison and a team of some of the greatest scientists in the world immersed themselves in a way of life that is on the cusp of extinction. Much of what was once a wildlife paradise is now a desert, devastated by logging and the forced settlement of nomadic tribes, where traditional ways of life and unimaginably rich and diverse species are slowly being driven to extinction.
This book is an eye-opening and beautifully written and illustrated book. Finding Eden, ells the extraordinary story of Nyapun’s life and what has happened since to the Penan and the Borneo rainforests. It is a story of our time that explores discovery, friendship and reminds us of the fragility of our planet and of the urgent need to preserve the last untamed places of the world.