Stinging Trees and Wait-a-Whiles: Confessions of a Rainforest Biologist

by William F. Laurance

The last traces of Australia's tropical rainforest, where the southeasterly winds bring rain to the coastal mountains, contain a unique assemblage of plants and animals, some primitive, many that are found nowhere else on earth. And fifteen years ago, they also contained Bill Laurance, a budding ecologist seduced by the nature of the landscape in north Queensland. Laurance isn't your typical he wears cut-offs instead of white coats, enjoys the occasional food fight, and isn't afraid to speak his mind, even if it gets him into trouble, as it often did in the Australian rainforest and as he recounts in his marvelous Queensland journal Stinging Trees and Wait-a-Whiles .
The book is his record of the time he spent in this remote area and his run-ins with plant, animal, and human species alike. Laurance lived in a tiny town of loggers and farmers, and he witnessed firsthand the impact of conservation issues on individual lives. He found himself at the center of a bitter battle over conservation strategies and became not only the subject of small-town gossip but also the object of many residents' hatred. Keeping ahead of his high-spirited young volunteers, hounded by the drug-sniffing local policeman, and all the while trying to further his own research amid natural and unnatural obstacles, Laurance offers us a personal and hilarious account of fieldwork and life in the Australian outpost of Millaa Millaa. Stinging Trees and Wait-a-Whiles is a biology lesson, a conservation primer, and an utterly energetic story about an impressionable young man who wound up at the epicenter of an issue that tore a small town apart.

Genres: Nonfiction

196 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2000

Reviews

[Peter Tillman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Memoir of a rainforest biologist in his student days, working on his Ph. D. research in remnant fragments of upland rainforest in tropical Queensland. He was trapping and releasing small mammals to measure species diversity, but that was the least interesting part, for me anyway. His account of life in a very small town in the tropical bush, formerly a logging town, but the forest had been pretty much logged out by then (late 1980s). His financial support was pretty minimal, so he had the bright idea of recruiting field assistants from youth hostels: he had rented a large house, so he could house and feed the volunteers and stay within his budget. As you can imagine, he got an interesting and ever-rotating crew of travelers, and the local residents were colorful too. Laurance was a pretty good diplomat, it turned out, and biologists and locals got along pretty well. Except there was an active proposal to protect the remaining Queensland rainforest as a UNESCO World Heritage Area, which would put the remaining loggers out of work. And the then-Governor was rabidly opposed to this, as were many locals. And Laurance made the mistake of getting involved in the controversy..... He did finish his field work and didn't get lynched. But there were hard feelings.

The things I remember most vividly from the book are the hostile flora and fauna. The Stinging Trees were truly bad news, incapacitating anyone who stumbled into their leaves. The leeches! the paralytic ticks! Laurance somehow managed to get a leech on his penis. OMG! The mud, the rain, the bad roads: I'm not at all a fan of the wet tropics. He didn't have any really serious illnesses himself or in his crew, but the wet season, and the jungle-rot.... OMG. At least they had a warm, dry place to retreat to, with hot water and a washer and dryer.

Laurance didn't quite have enough material for a book, so he added on an account of a short trip he took to the New Guinea highlands. Interesting but disjointed story, and another place I'm happy to never have visited, then and there anyway. Trouble and strife.

Good book if it sparks your interest. You may want to skip or skim the PNG stuff. 3.5 stars, rounded down for that. Queensland stuff approaches 4-star quality. And it's short.

[Cindy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting account of a biologist in the Austrailan rain forest. The title refers to dangers. Wait-a-whiles are vines with fish hook like spines - if you are entangled you'll wait a while until help comes along to free you.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun and light-weight, reads like a travel book.