The End of the River: Dams, Drought and Deja Vu on the Rio Sao Francisco

"When biologist Brian Harvey saw a thousand fish blundering into a Brazilian dam he asked the obvious: What's going to happen to them? The End of the River is the story of his long search for an answer. It is about people and rivers and the misuse of science." "Harvey takes readers from a fisheries patrol on the Fraser River to the great Tsukiji fish market in Japan, with stops in the Philippines, Thailand and assorted South American countries. Finally, in the arid outback of northeast Brazil, against a backdrop of a multibillion-dollar river project nobody seems to want, he finds a small-scale answer to his simple question." "The End of the River is a journey with many companions - some literary, some imaginary. But mostly they're real characters, human and otherwise: a six-foot endangered catfish, a chain-smoking Brazilian Brunhilde with a passion for her river, a drug-addled stick-up artist. The End of the River is about fishermen and fish farmers and even fish cops; there are scientists and shysters as well as a few Colombian narco-traficos and some very drunk, very hairy Brazilian men in thongs." "Funny and sad, The End of the River is off the beaten track, a new kind of writing about the environment."—Jacket.