AFRICAN SILENCES by Peter Matthiessen (Vintage:...

AFRICAN SILENCES by Peter Matthiessen (Vintage: $10). The noted writer/explorer recounts a series of trips he made to Africa in 1978-1986 in this sobering report on the destruction of the continent’s wildlife. Traveling with biologists, Matthiessen learned that during the last 15,000 years, elephants and humans have played an important role in renewing the African rain forests. Secondary growth in clearings created by foraging elephants and by small-scale slash-and-burn agriculture provides food and habitats for gorillas and other animals. But the slaughter of Africa’s elephants by ivory poachers and the increasing environmental degradation of the region due to overpopulation have largely destroyed the previous balance. Matthiessen concludes that much of Africa is no longer a noisy, vital wilderness but a dim and quiet place that suggests an abandoned temple.