Turtle planet : compassion, conservation, and the fate of the natural world
(Book)

"Exploring the bond between humans and animals, the wisdom they teach us, the wounds they can heal, and the role we play in their destruction. Turtle Planet blends science, fantasy, magical realism, fables, and truth to create a joyful, irrepressibly creative, and utterly unique literary experience. Daoist Monk Yun Rou received his academic education at Yale, Cornell, and the University of California and was ordained a Daoist monk at the Chun Yang (Pure Yang) Taoist Temple in Guangzhou, China. Drawing on fifty years of loving and husbanding turtles, from the car-sized giant Leatherback turtle to the Central Asian tortoise, Monk Yun Rou renders the wonders and suffering of the natural world through the eyes of eighteen exotic turtles, whom he visits while meditating. Finding them in deserts, jungles, rivers, streams, savannahs, and even an airport restroom, he listens as they share the triumphs and tragedies of their lives-sounding the alarm of what climate change, global extinction, human intervention, and environmental devastation really mean to their worlds and to ours."--,Back cover