The Devouring Dragon - How China's Rise Threatens The Natural World

Awa Press, Wellington, 2013. Tidy copy

The horrifying pollution within China is well-known. What's not so well-known is China's devastating impact on the entire world's forests, wildlife, oceans, rivers and climates. In New Guinea, many of the world's last great forests are being felled and exotic rare birds threatened to meet China's demand for timber; in Brazil, large swaths of the Amazon are being cleared to plant soybeans for China; in India, poachers are hunting and killing tigers and other endangered animals to extinction to feed Chinese demand; in New Zealand, land is being turned over to dairying at an alarming rate to provide food for China; in Australia, countryside is being eaten up and polluted for mines supplying coal to China.

In this brilliant book, Craig Simons visits many of the places, people and communities affected and produces a devastating report. The Devouring Dragon looks at how an ascending China has rapidly surpassed the U.S. and Europe as the worst-polluting superpower. This book asks questions that need urgent answers if life on Earth is to survive.