Just finished the last book I had picked up on my journey to East Africa. Published in '91, its a dismal reporting of the state of the wildlife left on the continent. Its really a collection of long articles he wrote from the late 70s to the late 80s. I'm assuming the preservation efforts are struggling even more now. According to this, the elephant and rhino populations have been decimated. Most of the governments and police were corrupt, the local societies he encountered were threadbare and ravaged and mistreated by their own governments. We again spend a good portion of the book at the end flying over the jungle and savanna landscapes. This book gives you a real sense of how dangerous flying in small planes there can be. As I'm writing this, I'm listening to Bela Fleck's "Throw Down Your Heart" which is his latest CD where he covered the same areas that Matthiessen did, but covered it last year looking for the roots of the banjo and playing with a great cross section of African musicians. There is a documentary on Pay-Per-View on Time Warner of his trip, its probably available through other cable sources. I guess I want to find out more about the current preservation efforts there now. Fleck's music is certainly more cheering.
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