In The Daily Express 14 th April 2005
By Kan Yaw Chong
A PORTRAIT of a male proboscis monkey dons the cover of "Saving Paradise' the latest book in town.
To principal author Carol Patterson, the "nosy" choice is reflective not only of the immense "biotic diversity' but also the mesmerising "charisma" of Lower Kinabatangan 's rich variety of mega fauna!
"Why call it 'paradise' when some say there is actually no paradise on earth because of all the imperfections? "I think paradise is a state of mind," she explained
"In Borneo , what you see in Kinabatangan is very special and it is very close to paradise we are going to find in the world that we have," she said.
"It is a very important place from the ecological point of view," she said.
"It has tremendous amount of biotic diversity, it has a lot of endemic species and you have species that capture people's imagination. I think that's why the proboscis is so popular and so memorable. We can appeal to or relate to that animal. It is appealing or interesting to us whereas a species of beetle or snake may be equally important but we don't seem to be attracted to it the same way, she said.
"There's a lot of charismatic mega fauna which are easy to see, visible, entertaining to watch and it's a way to get people turned on to nature, get more people to learn more about nature and to become conservationists," she added.
But what started her on the book was the way the elephants touched her feelings.
"Having worked with the elephants, I find them really intelligent. I admire many things in their culture. They relate to each other, the compassion they show," she said. She believed the problems people say about the elephant has to do with space.
"With enough space, Mother Nature is fairly good at managing things on their own," she noted.
Co-author, Albert Teo, who did most of the photographs, said the book was done literally by e-mails between Canada and Malaysia , as Patterson lives, in Calgary , Canada .
"It's 10 years of sweat and labour and took one-and-a-half years to write" he: said. "It's not perfect," he said.
There's a lot to be done to improve the photography, which we will do gradually later he said.
" But the whole book is a labour of love by himself, Carol and also South African, Duncan Butchart, who did the water colour illustrations on the typical birds found in the book, such as the Stork-billed Kingfisher which feeds on fresh water prawns, the rhinoceros, hornbill etc.
"There are well over 300 species of birds in Kinabatangan and birds are a very good indication of how intact an ecosystem is", said Butchart, although he conceded this is not a definitive statement, as he has not travelled right through the river ecosystem.
