News & Events 2006-2007

Society of Skeptics Addresses Maya Jungle

“Jungle of the Maya,” a Society of Skeptics program including a slide show and lecture by prize-winning photographers Doug Goodell and Jerry Barrack, and environmental writer Jim Wright took place on April 10, in Cowan Auditorium.

The program was based on the book, Jungle of the Maya, which tells the story of the natural and historic wonders of Latin America’s Maya forest and champions the preservation and protection of this amazing latter-day Eden. The book is also a celebration of those wonders — jaguars and other cats, spider monkeys and howlers, hummingbirds and butterflies, as well as the region’s hallmark Maya sites.

The writer and photographers, who all live in northern New Jersey, have been working on the book for nearly four years, capturing the tropical forest and its amazing inhabitants at all times of year. They made more than a dozen trips to the region, visited Maya sites in Belize, Guatemala and Mexico, and took more than 20,000 images before selecting the most compelling 200+ images for the publication. The coffee-table book, which features color photography throughout, also honors the Maya themselves, who built an amazing civilization in the middle of an immense jungle. It provides an historical and natural overview of the forest, suggestions on how to see its magnificent creatures, and underscores the need to preserve and protect this wonderful but little known place.

Goodell is working on a photography book about Costa Rica, while Wright and Barrack have two nature-oriented children’s books, Swan Babies and Icky, to be published soon. Wright also has a blog about screech owls living beyond his backyard: www.northjersey.com/owl

Updated 4/11/07

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