Sy+Montgomery

= Sy Montgomery = **Biography **
 * ==== only child ====
 * ==== daughter of an Army officer ====
 * ==== mother and father lived in Virginia later in lifefamily lived in Virginia ====
 * ==== a 1979 graduate of Syracuse University, degrees in Magazine Journalism, French Language and Literature and in Psychology ====
 * ==== awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University System of New Hampshire Board of Trustees ====
 * ==== award-winning writer of books for adults and for children ====
 * ==== writes a popular nature column for the Boston Globe ====
 * ==== regular contributor to National Public Radio's "Living on Earth" ====
 * ==== lives with husband and fellow writer Howard ====
 * ==== lives in Hancock, New Hampshire ====
 * ==== purpose is to reach as wide an audience as possible at what she considers a critical turning point in human history. ====

//[|Check out the interview at TeenReads]//
===//[|Experts from an interview done with Jeannine Stronach, from Pacific Rim Voices] // === **In //Quest for the Tree Kangaroo// you talk about how the Papua New Guineans have themselves taken on the cause of protecting the kangaroos, even donating land to preserve habitat. How important is it to involve the people who live in or near critical habitats in conservation efforts? How do scientists approach people who may come from very different cultural backgrounds from themselves? **

It is absolutely critical to involve local people in preserving the animals and plants and landscapes where they live. Scientists need to be aware of local knowledge and not dismiss things out of hand as superstition. What we need to do is learn how to listen for truth. Let me give you an example: in the giant mangrove swamp known as Sundarbans, I was researching these strange man-eating tigers who swim out after your boat and eat you. Nobody knows why the tigers are so aggressive. I wanted to find out. It's hard to study something that is trying to eat you, so I turned to the local people for answers. They told me tales that sounded impossible. "The tiger flies through the air," they said. "The tiger can become invisible!" But what they were saying was completely true: a tiger can't flap its wings like Tinkerbell, but it certainly can leap for 20 feet—and that's flying. The tiger can't go see-through, like Casper the Friendly Ghost. But because of its exquisite camouflage, it can hide behind a single blade of grass—completely invisible. And it turned out the local people understood completely the mystery of why these tigers are so unlike tigers elsewhere. The scientists just didn't understand what they were saying. Happily, Lisa's not like that. Lisa understood from the start she would have to work in partnership with the local people. She knew that she would need not only their cooperation, but also their knowledge and skills to make her project work. The local people I met are strong, brave and smart. They are almost supernaturally gifted trackers. They are the most stalwart defenders of the environment—their environment—that you could dream of. The local people have now donated even more land for conservation than what we reported in the book: now more than eight times the size of Manhattan! In the local school, a teacher told me that the village considers conservation just as important a subject for kids to study as science or math. Don't you wish our leaders were wise enough to realize that? I**n your book you quote Lisa Dabek as saying, "I really believe the future of conservation is with kids. The more kids around the world understand the importance of protecting plants and animals, the better off we'll be." What are some of the ways Lisa worked with kids in Papua New Guinea? What can young people do to protect the environment?** <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Supporting the school in Yawan village was one of Lisa's top conservation priorities. She knows the future of the tree kangaroos rests with these kids. Her project brought visiting teachers to work with the local teachers in many villages, so they could learn from each other. With money from the zoo and other conservation organizations, she established a scholarship fund so more local people could become teachers. She organized an art exchange between PNG and Western students. PNG students joined the International Bug Club and learned about local insects and insects around the world. Both the adults and kids appreciate Lisa's efforts very much. She's so beloved in the villages where she works that there are several children now named Lisa! <span style="display: block; line-height: 16pt; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Lisa shows kids both in PNG and here at home that young people can be powerful protectors of our environment. There are so many things we all can do—from helping migrating frog or salamander cross a busy street, to joining a beach cleanup, to writing letters to the newspaper to support strong conservation laws. We make ordinary choices every day that profoundly affect wildlife. Do you eat organic? You're saving fish and animals whose water won't be poisoned by chemical runoff from farms. Do you avoid buying stuff with excessive packaging? You could be saving sea turtles, who won't find a plastic bag that ends up in the ocean, mistake it for a tasty jellyfish, and choke on it. Do you try to buy things made locally? You could be helping whales. Buying things made overseas contributes to ocean traffic, which is now so jammed with freighters that the engines' noise interferes with whales' ability to communicate with one another. <span style="display: block; line-height: 16pt; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Sometimes kids can be more powerful voices than adults. For instance, did you know that [|palm oil], a major ingredient in many packaged cookies, is threatening the world's population of orangutans? Orangutan habitat is being rapidly burned to make way for plantations to grow palm oil - and the [|orangutans] are being burned along with the trees. Imagine if kids organized a letter writing campaign to the cookie companies that use palm oil! And if the companies didn't respond, imagine if those kids organized a public demonstration and boycott of those companies! I can tell you now, that would save the lives of tens of thousands of orangutans. Think of all the good those kids could do. And think of what a powerful civics lesson this could be. This is just one example. <span style="display: block; line-height: 16pt; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">**<span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">How do you measure a book's success? ** <span style="display: block; line-height: 16pt; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Of course I want to help create a beautiful book. I want to honor the people, animals and landscapes that inspired me to write. I want each of my books to be a prayer of thanks and praise for this planet and its marvelous creatures of all species. But most of all, the success I want is for my books to change readers' lives—that they make readers care enough to make it their life's work to protect this sweet green world and help keep it whole. That's a tall order, I realize, but one well worth a lifetime trying to fulfill. <span style="display: block; line-height: 16pt; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 12pt;">I don't know whether any of my books are successful by this measure; I may never know. But that's OK, because a book can keep on doing its work in the world, speaking to readers, long after the author is gone. []

Sy Montgomery's list of books