cover image Eco-Heroes: Twelve Tales of Environmental Victory

Eco-Heroes: Twelve Tales of Environmental Victory

Aubrey Wallace. Mercury House, $12.5 (256pp) ISBN 978-1-56279-033-2

These profiles of 12 winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize are inspiring tales of crusades in 10 countries. Wallace, former literary editor of The New Environmental Handbook , provides readable, if not very deep, narratives of their battles for the environment. Kenyan Wangara Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, which is trying to save Africa's deforested lands while empowering ordinary women, who have planted 10 million trees with their own hands. New Zealander Catherine Wallace's efforts to rescue her family farm from mining exploration developed into a fierce passion to preseve Antarctica from depredation. The two Americans profiled are outside the environmentalist mainstream: Sam LaBudde, whose graphic videotapes helped stop the slaughter of dolphins by tuna fishermen, criticizes Washington environmental organizations for their ``ethic of compromise''; Love Canal housewife Lois Gibbs, whose protests led her to found the Citizen's Cleaninghouse for Hazardous Wastes, believes that ``the average people and the average community can change the world.'' Gancher edited Not Man Apart. Photos not seen by PW. (Mar.)