Dit is nogal ’n uitdaging om ’n tuinboek te publiseer wat werklik al die uiteenlopende streke van Suid-Afrika in gedagte hou.
Marianne Alexander se Tuinmaak in Suid-Afrika deur die jaar slaag in ’n groot mate daarin om iets vir tuiniers oor die land heen te bied.
Die boek bied ’n maand-vir-maand-gids van wat in die tuin gebeur, tuintake vir die spesifieke maand, wat om in die kombuis- en vrugtetuine te doen, die geurtuin, plae wat in daardie tyd beheer moet word en wat daardie maand blom.
If you believe that the world is beset by a series of environmental problems that may well be fatal to civilisation, as it has commonly been understood, you may well be puzzled as to why the institutional responses to this crisis have, so far, been so ineffective. Some of the answers to that conundrum are provided in this interesting book.
Cormac Cullinan once practised law in the field of shipping and international commerce. At the same time, he is a former anti-apartheid activist. He now works as a partner in a specialist environmental law firm in Cape Town4 and also runs an environmental law and policy consultancy.
Verdict: carrot, just in time for Copenhagen; the reviewer goes so far as to say that the book should form the basis of a comprehension test for company directors and municipal managers.
WHILE the world is currently preoccupied with the financial crisis, it will soon have to address a far more serious ecological credit crunch. Both have similar causes — the inability of many humans to live within realistic means, and at the expense of other communities and the environment.
This is a well-organised book with helpful summaries and useful statistics. Interspersed case studies are particularly interesting, including the southern African examples of Anglo-American and the Limpopo-Lipadi transfrontier park.
Burbidge’s review is mainly a home-grown carrot, though he does cavil a bit when Featherstone waxes spiritual:
Throughout my childhood, the dusty two-volume Reader’s Digest book of South African gardening sat on the shelf, and I don’t remember anyone consulting it. The line drawings were in black and white and the spines were so stiff you could hardly open them.
Now, with Copenhagen under way, there can be no better time to pick up a copy of Pat Featherstone’s excellent Grow to Live (Jacana). She maintains everybody should grow some of their own food and that doing so is a healthy activity in itself.
Author of Scorched: South Africa’s Changing C limate and Boiling Point: People in a Changing Climate, science writer Leonie Joubert has produced another highly readable and accessible book, this time an account of invasive aliens — the plants and animals that have come to South Africa largely as a result of human migration — creatures removed from their original habitats that in many cases have set about trashing their new home.
Uitspraak: groen wortels
