Lost Worlds Of The Guiana Highlands - Hardback Review
Reviews and Testimonials
"Wunderkind photographer, geographer, and carnivorous-plant expert McPherson... has done it again... With some stunning photography, Lost worlds is a fine account of the discovery and exploration, natural history, and especially geology of the spectacular and distinctive, sheer-wall (up to 1,000 m high) tabletop mountains(tepui) of the Guyana Shield." -- Rudolf Schmid, UC TAXON, November, 2008 (Full text at bottom of page)This intrigue and fascination is continued and aptly conveyed by the Lost Worlds of the Guiana Highlands by Stewart McPherson. It is well written and liberally supported by spectacular colour photographs of magnificent landscapes that are unique to this region of the world. After a brief introduction to the Guianas, the layout of the book, and an explanation of terms used in the text, the author starts off with a bang by presenting 24 consecutive photo spreads of jaw-dropping images of tepuis. Next, he settles you in with a lesson on the geological history that gave rise to the unusual geographic features found in this area. One of the longer chapters covers the human history of and man’s interaction with the Guiana Highlands, starting with the indigenous Amerindians living in the shadows of the mountains to the European colonists looking for the imaginary golden city of Eldorado...
...My favourite chapter is titled “Some Strange Country of Nightmares”, which is based on a quote by Im Thurn on his first impressions of the features on the summit of Roraima that are seemingly from another world. The images of eroded and sculpted rock are enough to make me go there myself to check it out. The next chapter discusses the evolutionary processes that result in the speciation of the unique tepui flora and fauna, and the ecological processes that maintain this biodiversity. Almost a quarter of the book is a chapter devoted to describing the unusual organisms that live in this environment “above the clouds”... To the strength and interest of the author, there is a preponderance of botanical discussion with in-depth detail on the bizarre lifestyle of the carnivorous plants.
The last chapter examines the future prospects of the Guiana Highlands in terms of exploration, the indigenous people living in the area, and conservation from a regional perspective. Although the scenery and landscape are beautiful, the plateaus are in the remote and sparsely-inhabited interior of the Guianas. However, with the construction of roads and associated influx of settlers from the populated coast, particularly in Venezuela, this relatively unknown tropical paradise will undoubtedly experience substantial change in the near future. Most mountain tops have been unexplored and one recent discovery was an extensive subterra - nean cave system, which may entice the breed of hearty adventure seekers. A city of gold was never found but mining still occurs throughout the area, albeit primarily on a small scale. Nonetheless, there are ecological impacts with altering of the landscape and poisoning of the rivers with the use of mercury in the gold extraction process. The challenges will make it difficult to maintain the uniqueness of the area but the Amerindian communities seem cognizant of their task to preserve the ecosystem for future generations... the book is well worth the read. It will be of interest to people searching for something off the beaten track.
-- Burton K. Lim,
The Canadian Field-Naturalist, Vol. 122, 2009,
Department of Natural History,
Royal Ontario Museum,
Ontario,
Canada
With some "stunning photography, Lost worlds is a fine account of the discovery and exploration, natural history, and especially geology of the spectacular and distinctive, sheer-wall (up to 1,000 m high) tabletop mountains(tepui) of the Guyana Shield, which are well known for their high biotic endemism due to the ancient and complex geological history of the area. Inspired as a teenager by reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s (1859–1930) epic The Lost World (1912) and by cultivating the endemic pitcher-plant genus Heliamphora, McPherson visited the tepui “to retrace the footsteps of several of the early explorers” (p. 385). The 94-page seventh chapter entitled “life above the clouds” discusses many carnivorous-plant taxa as well as other plants and critters. The previous six chapters (240 pages) focus on the tepui themselves, including one chapter offering 24 two-page, awe-inspiring aerial vistas. The book has several other vistas, in all 241 mostly color photos plus 7 color maps/drawings. The last chapter (20 pages) is a summing up, including mini-essays on conservation and the local Amerindians.
... As botanists, especially younger ones, become increasingly reductionistic and molecular (obviously de rigueur nowadays for professional advancement), amateurs, photographers, geographers, and non-professionally-botanically trained persons like Stewart McPherson are increasingly filling in on our natural history, often with important new visions and vistas."
-- Rudolf Schmid, UC TAXON, November, 2008,