The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw: One Woman's Fight to Save the World's Most Beautiful Bird

by Bruce Barcott

“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.

Genres: Nonfiction, Animals, Nature, Birds, Science, Travel, History

313 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Bruce Barcott is an American editor, environmental journalist and author. He is a contributing editor of Outside and has written articles for The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, Mother Jones, Sports Illustrated, Harper's Magazine, Legal Affairs, Utne Reader and others. He has also written a number of books including, The Measure of a Mountain: Beauty and Terror on Mount Rainier (1997) and The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw: One Woman's Fight to Save the World's Most Beautiful Bird (2008). In 2009 he was named a Guggenheim Fellow in nonfiction.

Reviews

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

First read in June 2008. Reread in December 2016. I liked the book just as well the second time, I'm happy to say. Below is my original review written in 2008. Since that time I have, in fact, visited Belize, though we stayed on a caye and never visited the zoo or saw most of the places mentioned in the book.

I'm an admittedly "distracted" reader and often have several books going at once, but once I was a few pages into this one, I dropped all other reading to immerse myself in it. I should note that Belize has been on my travel wish-list for some years now, but I had only a dim notion of the country's politics and history. Purely as an education in all things Belizean, this is a terrific book. The history, culture, geography, and major players are all there. But beyond that, this book is a real eye-opener in delineating the sort of uphill struggle environmentalists and concerned citizens face in taking on even fairly clear-cut causes. In the case of the dam that was proposed (and opposed) in this book, there was very little benefit the project would bring, yet its backers, though a series of Machiavellian end-runs, managed to push the project through.

At the book's center is a remarkable woman, whom the author presents straightforwardly, warts and all. Sharon Matola is clearly no saint, but we like her all the better for it. Similarly, the book unfolds in a fairly straightforward manner, which is certainly refreshing given the usual trend of interminable narrative side tracks. I also admired how Barcott never overplayed his hand -- he let the main characters and facts speak for themselves with a minimum of sermonizing. He knows how to make a point without belaboring it.

Ultimately, the book is both inspiring and heartbreaking. I knew going into it that the dam was ultimately built, yet the reader is left with a glimmer of hope that the people in Belize will someday, somehow learn to stand up to their corrupt government.

As for my dreams of visiting Belize, well, let's just say that when and if I do go, I'll certainly have a different take on the place than I would have had I never read this book.

[... · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5* More accurately, the title of this book should be "The Fight to Stop the Construction of the Chalillo Dam in Belize: Sharon Matola's Environmental Battle."And slap a dam on its cover. This is not about the macaws. This is about politics, dams, and legal battles. It's well written, but what does that matter if it's not what was promised on the cover and in the title? Yes, it's interesting, and I don't regret reading it, but it's hard not to feel a little bit cheated with the macaws, which barely featured in the book. Even Sharon Matola was sidelined through about half of it.

[Stacy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started out loving this book, but I felt that it did get bogged down in too much detail around the middle.

The "Zoo Lady" Sharon was a fascinating and brave woman who cared so much about Belize and its animals.

Then you have the corrupt government, hiding information and making side deals while increasing the power rates of the impoverished citizens. And the evil company that is only too happy to take the money that will further indebt this country.

I went to Belize last year and found it absolutely beautiful. I hope the people who run it can think more of its citizens and less about their pocketbooks in the future.

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to admit that I often read books with an eye to edit. What would I cut to make it more efficient? This is a story of a woman trying to save the last nesting ground of the scarlet macaw in Belize from being flooded by the construction of a dam to provide her country with much needed electricity. Did we need the chapter on the Mayan civilization? Did we need to know the entire colonial history of Belize? Did we need an overview of dams in the United States? The answer is yes. All this information and more contributes to the conflict in this beautifully balanced book. I wouldn’t have cut a single word.

[Staz Kunz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Conservation memoir that reads like a thriller! Corruption. Lies. Bravery. An incredible heroine. All the makings of a fantastical story except it’s true. Which makes it all the more depressing and intriguing. Overall very informative and engaging. Sharon Matola is inspiring and such a beacon for conservationists. Her loss this year hurts, but this book is a great tribute to her. A must-read for aspiring conservationists.

[Apriel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a heartbreaking book to read. I wish the author would put out an updated edition showing how the dam was worse than anyone could have imagined.

[Taveri · Rating 5 out of 5]

This engaging book covers the life of Sharon Motala up to her battle to stop devious (lying) corporate entities and corrupt politicians from building a dam that would destroy the only habitat in Belize of the Scarlet Macaw. Along the way learn about the Maya, how governmant funds disappear to friends and the diversity of wildlife in Belize. Most of all we learn about thtenacious founder of the Belize Zoo who ran away to join the circus and took what she learned when she worked with Jaguars.

Most of the time the animals were happy to see her on her daily rounds but one day an ocelot bit into her arm. She said "I should have probably gone to the hospital but who has time for that?"

When riots broke out in Belize City the Prime Minister sent in the air force, which composed of one man who mollified the crowd with barrel rolls and loop de loops. They stopped to watch and when he was done they went back to rioting.

Such are the diveristy of stories within a story. To side track Sharon's dealings with decisions on the future of the environment she sought to have the Rolling Stones recognized in their hometown.

She took parttime work to make ends meet on an incredible zoo that ran on only a 250,000 dollar budget. Some CEOs make more than that.

I found the book a page turner and finished its 300 pages in 24 hours.

[Rowan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book about one woman's conservation fight precisely because it's not just about one woman and conservation. Rather, it shows how many people need to be involved and how many aspects of culture, history, economics, science, and politics need to be considered in conservation decisions. Plus, it's a good read. Recommended!

[Mel · Rating 5 out of 5]

You'll love the writing style, the characters and the setting, but it will get your ire up.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

After the death of Sharon Matola—the “woman” of the subtitle of this book—earlier this year, I moved The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw: One Woman’s Fight to Save the World’s Most Beautiful Bird from the bookcase where it had been living for several years to my “to read” pile, intending to get to it early last summer.

When I finally opened it in early October, I was delighted—despite knowing the outcome. It’s a captivating, well-written account of the fight against the creation of a dam in Belize that would not only destroy the nesting grounds of the scarlet macaw but also result in other far-reaching environmental and economic effects—all ostensibly to reduce power costs for Belizeans. There was not a lot of suspense—I already knew that the dam had been created—but Bruce Barcott captures the drama of so many efforts to defeat the dam. The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw is a story of corporate greed, government corruption, and abject poverty, but it also captures in words the history and the natural beauty of Belize.

[Joyce Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every time I go to San Francisco, the first stop is usually a long walk to City Lights Booksellers. The most amazing indie-bookstore on planet earth! I'm always discovering new gems here. This being one of them. I love natural history, and at times, struggle with it in context to conservation. Conservation has become such a dirty word, and with understood cause. I love my 'earth' fighting friends, but understand that they often alienate with their passionate (albeit righteous) propagandizing rather than 'recruit'. Not so with this book.

If you ever want to discover the pain and hope that goes into fighting the 'good' fight...this is a book for you. Fighting the good fight is met with perils and inestimable odds, which reminds the reader of the basic plight of conservation. Be warned, there is much frustration here, but such is the case with conservation. Don't let that deter you.

The author was very bold not to over-sentimilize, nor patronize such a delicate topic. I feel I now know so much (good and bad) about a beloved country I've so desired to visit, and when I do, the first place I will go to is Sharon's beloved zoo.

Read it if you love Belize, parrots, or want to be turned onto a well-balanced dose of conservation at it's finest (and most realistic).

[Audrey Approved · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read around the world project - Belize

I'm reading this as part of an around-the-world challenge and definitely learned a lot about Belize. I think it's slightly ironic how the author highlighted the country's dislike for foreign intervention, airing of dirty laundry AND bad international press - all of which this book provides.

I found The Last Macaw mostly interesting, although definitely heavy on the politicking and less on the whole macaw thing. I felt invested in the outcome, but got bogged down in all the different names and agencies and organizations. While this is definitely well-researched, Barcott heavily leans on the conservationist side - but makes this clearly known from the onset. This is the first environmental justice book I've read that didn't end in any sort of "win" and tbh, I felt pretty depressed after finishing...

3.5/5 stars

[Jana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommended for ecological learning, how harmful dams really are, how big capitalist global companies ruin wildlife and culture, and of course, the living habits of the endangered Scarlet Macaw. The author also writes for Outdoor magazine and did some extremely thorough and amazing research. He managed to keep digging up facts, just when you thought he couldn't get any more. Read about the real-life heroine attempting to save the Macaws. Excellent!

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not care for this book. I thought there would be much more information about the macaws, the beauty of Belize, and Ms. Matola, instead much of it was about politics and dams.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Totochelamouche · Rating 4 out of 5]

A government crony - call him Mr. Harmon - applies for a $3 million loan to build a resort on Ambergris Caye. The DFC gives Mr. Harmon a ten-year loan at 13 percent. It's a good deal, the banks are charging 19 percent, but that doesn't matter because Harmon isn't going to make any payments. What he does is take the cash and wait a few months. He puts a few thousand dollars into construction to make it look good, then he defaults on the loan. The government repossesses his resort, which is nothing but a cement foundation. The money goes on the government's books as a bad loan, but nobody really cares because it's government money. Meanwhile, Mr. Harmon pockets $3 million cash.

Every once in a while, though, I meet a rare subspecies of human who offers hope. It's almost never a politician or a scientist. It's almost always a woman without credentials. They're often self-taught researchers who become experts through years of hard experience and close observation. They're the ones who scoop up a jar of brown water from a ditch and ask impertinent questions about what's in it. Because they don't know protocol they barge in and do what nobody else has the courage to do. They don't ask permission.

The corporation developing the dam was Fortis, a power company based in Newfoundland, Canada. In 1999, Fortis purchased Belize's electrical utility, Belize Electricity Limited (BEL), as part of the Belizean government's privatization program.

There are few things in this world that can be called dead certainties. One is that when the government starts running ads boasting of the local dollar's strength, the local dollar is about as mighty as a kitten in a river.

If it were giving that much power, as much as you need for all of Belize, I wouldn't stand in the way. But we're talking about six megawatts!

He'd discovered on his own that the company building the dam had no idea what kind of rock they were building the dam upon. "They're saying the river's full of good solid granite," he said, "but I've never found granite out here."
"Could dam builders make such a basic mistake?"
"Contractors are human," he said. "Engineers make mistakes. The only problem is that there's a town of fifteen thousand people living directly downriver from the dam. If the dam fails, that mistake could wipe them out in a matter of seconds."

He pulled teeth while Sharon studied Russian and wildlife biology at the University of Iowa. It might have been an ideal setup for someone. It wasn't for Sharon. Her husband wanted to have kids. She didn't.

With a population of 225,000, Tenochtitlan boasted more people than London and Paris combined. Aztec kings ruled from dazzling white palaces and strolled through elaborate gardens and aviaries. Fresh spring water flowed through one of the world's most elaborate aqueducts. [...] With the nation's leaders unguarded and unarmed, Cortés unleashed his horses, swords, and cannons - technology unknown in the New World - and killed them all.

The cutters who felled mahogany stacked the wood on the riverbanks and let the rainy season floods flush the timber to Belize City. Why build roads when Mother Nature delivered it for free?

Nobody knows who built the first dam. The oldest one for which evidence remains is the Sadd el-Kafara ("Dam of the Pagans"), a thirty-seven-foot-high structure about twenty miles south of Cairo. Built around 2600 B.C., about the time the Egyptians were raising the first pyramids, the dam was an impressive structure.

Invented in the first century B.C., the water wheel was a large wheel studded with flat blades that turned as water flowed against the blades. In terms of its influence on the development of civilization, the water wheel was right up there with the spear and the plow. By converting the force of a flowing river into mechanical energy (as the wheel spun a radial shaft), for the first time humanity drew power from something other than the muscle of man or beast.

If there is credit or blame for the British settlement of Belize, it must be laid at the foot of the fashion industry. In the sixteenth century, Spanish settlers in the Yucatan discovered a crooked swamp-loving tree known as logwood. The tree's heartwood boiled down into a blue-black dye that offered an alternative to indigo.

In the predawn darkness of a winter morning, the Caribbean and North American plates slipped past each other and triggered one of the deadliest earthquakes in Central American history. In less than a minute, one-third of Guatemala City was destroyed. Twenty-three thousand people died.

She gave slide presentations about Chalillo and the Macal River valley in local villages and gathering spots. In doing so she ripped an old page out of the conservation playbook. If you want people to save something, you have to show them what's worth saving.

In 1980, the National Park Service inventoried all the rivers in the contiguous United States. They found more than 3,000 distinct rivers totaling more than 3,231,000 miles of running water. Of that total, only forty-two sizeable rivers (longer than 125 miles) remained free-flowing and undammed. The number of major rivers (longer than 620 miles) left untouched by the twentieth century's great damming frenzy was exactly one: the Yellowstone.

Nisqually Tribe leader Billy Frank, Jr., lives with the trade-off every day. "They talk about cheap electricity," he once said. "Hydropower. It's not cheap. It's all been paid for by the salmon. Every time those lights come on, a salmon comes flying out."

Their reservoirs are slowly filling with sediment. Dam engineers in North America and Europe have devised ways to alleviate the problem, but in developing countries like Belize, where corners are often cut, sediment can take decades off a dam's productive lifespan.

But vegetation decays quickly in warm reservoirs. At the Brokopondo Dam in Suriname [...] the rotten-egg stink of hydrogen sulfide produced by its reservoir was so bad that dam workers had to wear gas masks for two years after the dam's closure. The water turned so acidic that it ate away the dam's cooling system.

At the bottom of warm subtropical reservoirs, vegetation decaying in oxygen-poor water produces methane, a greenhouse gas twenty times as potent as CO2 at inducing climate change. At the top, plants rotting in oxygen-rich water produce carbon dioxide. [...] Gas release varies from dam to dam, but most reservoirs produce about one-tenth the amount of a coal-fired power plant.

Belizeans are poor, but they aren't as destitute as their Guatemalan neighbors. What Belize lacks is infrastructure. When Belizeans need a modern hospital, they drive to Guatemala. When they want to visit a well-stocked library, they catch a bus to Mexico.

Bowen's father had been the last colonial-era owner of the Belize Estate Company, which was to Belize what the Hudson's Bay Company was to Canada.

Between 1900 and 2000, nearly thirty million live birds of all species were imported to the United States for retail sale.

Since 1960 Central America has lost more than 70 percent of its forest cover. Most of that territory was cleared to make way for cattle ranches, sugar cane fields, and coffee plantations.

At night they ate rice fortified with palm hearts sliced out of nearby trees.

Researchers have shown that macaws, like ravens and crows, can recognize and remember human faces.

"My favorite time of day is between four and six-thirty in the morning," Sharon once told me. "Nobody's up, nobody's bothering you. Dark turns to light and the birds come to life. I listen for the forest falcons. They have a haunting cry, and they're usually up before anything else. Then as it gets lighter the clay-colored robins and parakeets come in. The energy level of nature is at its peak in the morning. [...]"

Extinction is a profound idea. Ancient naturalists never imagined such a thing, even as the evidence lay before them in the form of fossils. [...] In the seventeenth century, to claim that a species had been snuffed out was to imply a flaw in the Creator's design. [...] Desperate for theological consistency, scientists settled upon what might be termed the "shy descendants" theory: Extinct species found as fossils must exist, yet undiscovered, in the wilderness or in the sea.

To defray that cost, Amec hatched a scheme to make the taxpayers of Canada foot the bill. The company assigned the project to its Montreal office, then applied for foreign aid from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). [...] In June 2000, CIDA awarded Amec's Canadian division a $167,500 grant to prepare the Chalillo IEA. The grant was later increased to $312,000.

As they've evolved - especially in developing countries - EIAs often provide little more than the illusion of environmental checks and balances. Many of the world's largest construction firms now operate lucrative environmental consulting arms that produce slick project-justifying EIAs for the worst sorts of developments.

In the 1920s, Quebec attempted to wrest Labrador from Newfoundland, claiming that the territory lay within the natural boundaries of French Canada. You can see their point. On a map of Canada, Labrador seems strangely jigsawed out of Quebec. Newfoundland's claim rests on its traditional use of Labrador's shoreline and interior as summer fishing and hunting grounds. The two neighbors battled all the way to the Privy Council, the highest court for Commonwealth nations, where the Law Lords declared Newfoundland the rightful owner.

Near the end of World War II, explorers journeying to the remote interior of Labrador came upon one of the last pristine wonders of the world: Hamilton Falls, the third largest waterfall on the planet.

Stan Marshall was nobody's fool. "Of course the dam will be economical," Tillett explained to Sharon. "Economical for Fortis! For Belizeans buying their power, not so much."

Developed countries require such pits to have watertight liners that prevent leakage into the water supply. Stantec, the Canadian engineering company designing the new dump, wanted to do without liners.

Anne worked on development projects in southern Belize. She was a steely Danish woman with an even temperament and a no-nonsense, pragmatic outlook on life. She got along well in Belize.

At the end of their meeting in Newfoundland, Fortis chief engineer John Evans had assured Ari Hershowitz that he'd send the NRDC a copy of BEL's power purchase agreement. The agreement set the terms for the power company's purchase of electricity from the Mollejon Dam. Hershowitz waited months for the promised copy. It never arrived.

Breaking away from the Privy Council has long been seen as a milestone in a colony's road to full independence. Canada ended its appeals to the Privy Council in 1933. Australia sent its last case in 1968. Malaysia cut its ties in 1985, Singapore in 1994.

In early 2004 Fonseca signed a hush-hush deal with Carnival Cruise Lines giving the company the right to build an enormous new terminal in Belize City. The only problem was that he had already sold exclusive docking rights to Carnival's rival, Royal Caribbean.

Paper parks are conservation areas that exist on maps but aren't protected in practice. They make governments look good in the eyes of international lenders, tourists, and environmentalists, but they're essentially a form of greenwashing.

[Lainey Monroe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of the 40, 177 species assessed in 2006 by the world conservation union, 16,119 were listed as threatened with extinction. Over the past 500 years most extinctions have been limited to oceanic islands. Over the past 20 years Continental extinctions have become as common as Island extinctions. Of the world's 10,000 species of birds about 1,000 are expected to die out within the next three human generations. Scientists give large carnivores like tigers lions grizzlies one more century to live, two at most. We kill some animals outright, but mostly we are just destroying their homes. Scarlet macaws are dying out in Central America because the region lost 1/5 of its Forest cover between 1990 and 2005.

"A proper zoo shouldn't be a mere amusement park, Durrell wrote in the stationary arc. It should combine the highest levels of animal care and scientific research with a mission to educate the public and conserve the diversity of wildlife in the world."

"Nobody knows who built the first dam. The oldest one for which evidence remains is the sadd el-kafara ("dam of the pagans"), a 37 ft high structure about 20 mi south of cairo. Built around 2600 BC ......"

"Hydropower.. it's not cheap. It's all been paid for by the salmon."

"Historian Richard white described a river as an organic machine. Like the wind in the tides, a river's rushing water acts as a self-sustaining engine of change. It's Swift flowing current moves nutrients from the mountains to the Sea and from the forest floor to the flesh of fish, salamanders, and snails. Those creatures in turn push nutrients back upstream. Otters and eagle snatch fish from bankside eddies and leave half eaten carcasses. Trees thrive on the nitrogen provided by the rotting meat. Seasonal floods replenish the valley floor with sediment, the rich organic muck that blends life and death in decay into nature's own fertilizer. A river mixes the food. If you were to track the motion of water in a free-flowing river you draw an endless chain of circular arrows. A wild River moves energy in a million tumbling circles.
To do that a river has to run. When a dam stops the flow, the organic machine goes Haywire All the energy that move through the system stops at the dam."

"A typical dam will eliminate 1/4 to 3/4 of the fish species in a river. The problem isn't limited to fish. Everything living in the river downstream of a new dam struggles to survive and it's unhealthy water.."

"History places certain demands upon us. One is that we learned from the experience of others. 40 years ago, we didn't know that dams kill rivers. Now we do. Some things are morally indefensible.. slavery, amongst others. Other practices exist in a more complicated realm or no bright line separates right from wrong. Damning a river now resides in this unsettled limbo. In an age of abundance there would be no question. In an age of limits this is something else entirely. The planet is running out of wild rivers. There aren't hundreds of thousands of scarlet macaws. In fact there are less than 200.".

"The energy level of nature is at its peak in the morning. Everything just dances."

"Also Leopold wrote an essay called "thinking like a mountain" and told a story of killing a wolf in 1909, not long after Roosevelt declared open season on the predators. after watching the " fierce green fire" die in the wolf's eyes, Leopold realized the error of his ways. 'I was young then and full of trigger Itch' he wrote. 'I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would meant hunters paradise. But after seeing the 'green fire die', I sensed it neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.'"

Jaguars have the biggest brain to body mass ratio of all the big cats. They're extremely intelligent, which makes them independent, unpredictable, and dangerous. You'll never see a Jaguar tamer in the circus. If you do, buy a ticket, because that'll be a one-time show.

US supreme Court Justice Louis brandei once remarked " government is the omnipresent teacher. For good or ill it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law breaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself.'

Extinction is a profound idea. In the 17th century, to claim that a species had been snuffed out was to imply a flaw in the Creator's design. A slippery slope led to a denial of God's existence. Desperate for theological consistency, scientists settled upon what might be termed the quote shy descendants " theory: extinct species found as fossils must exist, yet undiscovered, in the wilderness or in the sea. It wasn't until 1796 when French naturalist George cuvier presented the scientific world with evidence that the Indian and African elephant were two distinct species. Then he turned to a fossilized mammoth, another species entirely. The mammoth was found in Northern europe, and areas scientifically will scoured. So where was this thing hiding?"

Today 1 in 6 mammals faces a high risk of extinction. Parrots are particularly vulnerable. The 372 parrot species tracked by the IUCN, 19 have already gone extinct and 48 are considered highly endangered.

Humans are expert destroyers because we've developed so many efficient ways to kill things off. We slaughter them outright, or destroy their habitat by turning forests into farmland and paving Meadows and a strip malls. We sell the isolated Islands in and introduce all sorts of things like cats rat seeds and disease.. now we have climate change!

Perhaps the most shocking thing about extinctions is how fast they can happen. (ie: almost bison)

The Tasmanian tiger roamed the outback for thousands of years. Humans hunted it to new Extinction by the beginning of the 20th century and in the 1930s a movement arose to protect the animal. In 1936 the Tasmanian tiger finally received officially protected status. A few months later it went extinct."

When it comes to subspecies things get pretty murky and you may get different definitions from scientists. Biologists divide into lumpers and splitters. Lumpers allow for minor variation within a species, they don't believe in subspecies. this tends to keep population figures high and widespread. Splitters believe in subspecies, which tends to break up species into smaller, isolated population, and make some appear more vulnerable to extinction.

Many people in the early 1900s firmly believed in what former US interior secretary Stewart Udall once called the "myth of super abundance", the idea that the trees in the forest and the fish in the sea are so limitless that the greatest efforts of man could never deplete them.

[Grrlscientist · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nonfiction books are often thought of as being “good for us”, as if they were literary vitamin tablets, but many people take their summers off from their vitamins by reading trashy novels or mysteries while ensconced under an umbrella on a sandy beach. So what would you say if you could read a book that has the best qualities of both genres? If you think that such a book doesn’t exist, well, think again: Bruce Barcott’s recently published book, The Last Flight of The Scarlet Macaw: One Woman’s Fight to Save the World’s Most Beautiful Bird (NYC: Random House; 2008), is that book. It tells the true story of a woman who courageously faces down a corrupt Central American government and several international corporations to protect what she loves.

This witty and well-written book tells the compelling story of transplanted American adventurer, Sharon Matola, also known as the “Zoo Lady” of Belize who spearheaded a tremendous six year battle to save the only known habitat of the last 200 scarlet macaws in the country from being flooded by a proposed dam.

The author begins by his tale by delving into his colorful heroine’s peculiar personal history. We learn that Matola’s love for the tropical rainforest began shortly after she joined the Air Force and took a wilderness survival course in Panama. But after her Air Force adventures, Matola did try to be normal for awhile. She fell in love with a dentist and settled down in the suburbs of Iowa City, but she quickly found that married life was too confining. She panicked. Matola hopped a train and ran away to join the circus, where she became a tiger tamer. A few years (and adventures) later, she was hired to help film a nature documentary about orphaned native wildlife in the small tropical country of Belize. When the filming ended, Matola was unemployed, but still responsible for the care of a motley group of the film’s stars, an orphaned jaguar, puma, ocelot, and some tropical birds. So she did the most sensible thing under the circumstances; she started a zoo.

After a rocky start, the Belize Zoo became a big hit: it filled a tremendous hunger among the people by showing them their amazing wealth of native wildlife, which most of them had never seen, and provided them with a sense of pride in the natural wonders in their tiny country.

But the love affair with the nation’s wildlife did not last because the Zoo Lady learned that there were plans to build a dam that will flood the pristine Macal River valley near the Belize Zoo. The Macal valley was an environmental Noah’s Ark populated by jaguars, tapirs, pumas, river otters, ocelots, howler monkeys, tapirs, harpy eagles — and by the last 200 scarlet macaws that nest in the country. Scarlet macaws that ecotourists pay good money to see. It doesn’t take long before Matola declared war upon the government and the international corporations proposing to build the Chalillo dam, especially after it was revealed that dams in general cause a tremendous amount of environmental destruction upstream as well as down, that this dam will be constructed on geologically unsafe earth immediately upstream from a city of 15,000 people, and that this dam would result in higher energy rates for the citizens of Belize while making a few corrupt government officials fabulously wealthy. Barcott succinctly sums up the situation thusly: “the dam was a fiasco: environmentally devastating, economically unsound, geologically suspect and stinking of monopoly profiteering.”

Matola’s efforts to protect the Macal River earn her a place on the Belizean government’s loudly trumpeted list as an “an enemy of the people” even while children continued to cheerfully wave and shout “Hello, Zoo Lady!” as she rode her motorcycle through the countryside. Because she persisted in her battle, the government decided to punish her by building a new national dump next to her zoo despite the fact that runoff from the landfill would end up polluting the nearby river and the people who use its water. This punitive move was finally stymied after Britain’s popular Princess Anne visited the country and spoke out against it.

In addition to the unique Matola, Barcott’s storytelling introduces us to a large cast of other colorful characters: several of the People’s United Party politicians such as the astonishingly smarmy “Minister of Everything,” Ralph Fonseca, and party spokesman Norris Hall; the British-Belizean politician and entrepreneur, Lord Michael Ashcroft; Jacob Scherr and Ari Hershowitz of the National Resources Defence Council. In the pages of this book, you also become acquainted with the astonishing beauty and richness of this tiny country, as well as learning a little about how the politics in third world countries actually work. Not only that, but reading this book really makes you want to visit Belize itself.

Even though this book is nonfiction, it reads like a thriller — you will find yourself perched on the edge of your bed long past your normal bedtime, turning the pages as quickly as your eyes can read them .. and then what happened? The author does a splendid job of weaving together a wealth of information about the ecology of dams, the politics and conservation of endangered species, the background of the National Resources Defence Council (NRDC) and the Privy Council of England, the history of Belize and the many injustices suffered by this tiny nation and how they conspired to damage the country yet again, and a quirky cast of characters — all of whom are fascinating enough to make Carl Hiaasen envious.

This must-read book is a clear voice in a wilderness of confusion regarding the clashes between people and wilderness, progress and the environment, politicians and citizens. You don’t need to love parrots or hate corrupt politicians to be enthralled by this book because in the end, it is a powerful tale about a very unusual, passionate, committed, stubborn — and inspiring — individual. “People like Sharon are rare and strange and sometimes aggravating,” Barcott writes about his hero. “These people aren’t perfect. They aren’t simple heroes. They are complex human beings. And we need them. Because without them the world would be lost.”


NOTE: Originally published at scienceblogs.com on 26 June 2008. Curated at Medium.

[Jennifer Pletcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the true story of Sharon Matola - the "zoo lady" who has devoted her life to the safety of the wild animals in Belize. When she discovers that a big power company plans to build a dam right where the last remaining Scarlet Macaw's nest in Belize, she knows she is in for a fight to stop the build.



The story follows how she, and a pieced together team, flight the dam all the way to court to try and save these endangered birds. The author pieces together how globalization and a growing demand for power are killing off species all over the globe. He shows how one woman risks everything to save this bird and the land around it.



This was a pretty good book. It had some dry parts, where it gets very involved with the history of some of the government and power companies involved in the fight, but the parts revolving around Sharon and the animals were very interesting. She is a power house in the world of animal conservation and the zoo she has built for injured animals. She is an American that picked up her life 36 years ago and hasn't looked back. She had a mission and a passion and she stuck with it - even when hard times hit.



This was a great find, this book. I am intrigued to visit her at her zoo and Belize in the future. I would like to meet someone who had that much passion for our ever disappearing wild animals.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although at times it read a bit like an long journalistic account rather than a a non-fiction 'story,' i really enjoyed it, and learned a bunch. Amazing to read while spending time in some of the beautiful areas of Belize described in the book. Sharon Matolo is inspiring - keep fighting the good fight! While her antagonists and the local corruption are appalling and disgraceful. #1 book to read if travelling to Belize

[Lin F · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about a lot more than birds. It's actually about conservation, politics, corrupt governments, geology, ecology, history, and much more. I was fascinated by the Belize Zoo and dismayed by some of the things I learned about the government in Belize. This is a book that I was glad I read.

[Amy C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rounded up rating - I learned a lot about Belize and the politics of the 90s/00s there. It did drag on towards the end and was a slight slog for me in the last section.

[Jessica Park Rhode · Rating 3 out of 5]

keep hold-leapfrogging with another person at sfpl- will hopefully finish this summer

[Kelly Kittel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Five stars for this important book and for its protagonist, Sharon Matola, who recently died on 3/21/21. Loved the threads about electricity and hydropower, having been a fish biologist for Bonneville Power Administration once upon a time trying to save the salmon from the Columbia River dam's devastation. Love/hated all of the wildlife threads, sad as our current fifth mass extinction is. The book does get bogged down in the middle, but it's still a must-read for all because in spite of all we've learned about environmental destruction, we're still doing it. Why did Belize not consider solar power?! So frustrating. And one does have to wonder if this contributed to Sharon's early demise from a heart attack.

I have 7 pages of notes to condense so there will be more to this review. In the meantime...read this book.

K3

[Jayme · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a love/hate relationship with this book. While I really enjoyed the subject and found it a quick and enjoyable read, it had some major flaws. The most irritating of these was that whole book read like one magazine article after another; sometimes only loosely related to each other.

Aside from the writing style this book covered so many different and interesting topics. I liked learning more about the history of Belize; its ruins, wars, jungles, strange and beautiful animals, and how it came to be the Belize it is today. I admit some of the chapters seemed like filler, trying to make the book meatier than it really was. A whole chapter devoted to the history of dams was a little much. But overall the extra details made the story more interesting.

As for the main story about Sharon and her fight to save the birds, it was beautiful and inspirational, while at the same time bitter and depressing. If you go into this book without knowing the history behind the building of the Challilo Dam it's still fairly obvious what the outcome will be. The amount of opposition that Sharon goes up against trying to fight the construction; the dirty politics, the reluctant public, the media spin, the technicalities...you wonder how she didn't just give up.

One last thing, as a Canadian reading this story, it made me sad to see the part my own country played in this story. We always come across as behind the times when it comes to the environment. Ugh.

[Marcie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I ordered this book before traveling to Belize in early-August, but it came after my return. I started reading it about a month ago, and I'm glad I read it after processing the trip and after the visiting the Belize Zoo. The story is about Sharon Matola, the founder and director of the Belize Zoo, and her determination to challenge the construction of the Chalillo Dam and save the nesting grounds of the vulnerable Scarlet Macaw. Although Sharon and her team of professionals exhibited great fortitude against the behemoth of globalization, the dam's construction proceeded, and it has had a devastating effect on the Macal River Valley Scarlet Macaw's nesting grounds in addition to the Macal River's water quality.

The story is well-written, and it page-turner. Many facets of Belizean culture, politics, environmental stewardship, and the historic effects of British colonization are addressed. These facets provide a rich backstory to the dam's narrative.

It is now twelve years after the dam's commissioning, and the dam has lessened, not eliminated, Belize's energy dependence. Despite the dam's construction, consumers' electric rates have continued to increase, and Belize is still exploring methods to reduce its electricity dependence on Mexico.

[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.)

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.

[David Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw: One Woman's Fight to Save the World's Most Beautiful Bird by Bruce Barcott (Random House 2008) (333.95871). The country of Belize in Central America, formerly known as British Honduras, announced plans to build a hydroelectric dam in the remote Chalillo Valley to supplement its energy shortfall. The beautiful scarlet macaw, which was once so widespread as to be ubiquitous in Central and South America, has been almost extirpated in Belize. Some few dozen scarlet macaws nest in the Chalillo Valley. The problem was that when completed, the dam's reservoir would completely inundate the macaw's nesting sites; they would all be underwater. One woman opposed the project. When the conflict had played out, one must conclude (1) that the good guys don't always win, or (2) at first glance, one can't always tell who the good guys are. This is less a book about animal populations in the third world than it is a book about politics and governmental power. My rating: 7/10, finished 10/23/15.

[Danielle T · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite this being nonfiction I didn't look up what happened to the project until after i finished... and now I"m pretty bummed, because SPOILER ALERT the dam gets built anyway. I picked this up from the Friends of Library booksale at the Boise Public Library last summer and didn't get around to reading it until I moved and found myself without a library card for a week (my backlog of used books could keep me going for a while).

The biology of the Macal River and Belize is covered early on, but pretty soon the story turns into a political fight, which isn't quite what I was expecting from the title, especially as things quickly get bogged down in corruption and cronyism. An interesting look at a recent clash between environmental deals and the need for electricity with a sketchy government officiating deals.

[Mike Parkes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good brisk page-turner about the intersection and conflict between wildlife conservation and development, focused on the political and legal battles to build a hydroelectric dam in the heart of Belize's rainforest, putting the endangered scarlet macaw at risk. Great read for tourists heading to Belize - you will learn something about the nature, politics and history of the nation. The character at the heart of the story is the owner of the Belize Zoo, one of the most popular tourist attractions in the country. I won't spoil how the story ends, but I do wish the author had spent a bit more time updating how the title characters (the scarlet macaws) fared, after the final decision on whether or not to proceed with the dam was made. The book rushes breathlessly towards the "go/no-go" decision on the dam, and then ends rather abruptly.