The graphic novel Jungle Rock follows Dex on a journey to the Amazon Rainforest where he learns about Indians, Gold, and how people take advantage of the romantic loyalties of Parrots!
Written in the early 90’s by Jay Thres and beautifully illustrated by Pete Loveday. To order hard copies of the new edition of the book order through Paypal, button below, or transfer £7.99 per copy to account name: Dex Dipper Ei, sort code 30 96 23, account number 20581468 and contact Jay Thres direct with your address when you have done so. £1 of the first 800 sold will be shared between the Pachamama Alliance and the Environmental Investigation Agency. (Just sent off £30 to EIA and also to Pachamama, was excited to find the latter was at a time someone was matching donations so they should get £60, (31/12/2020) gt news!!)
Age wise I suggest Jungle Rock is PG, for like in Tintin there is some violence, and though a bit more real in Dex it is not gratuitous, also nodding a hat to fifties style film noire detectives Dex himself is not yet that pc.
Some feedback old and new:
”“I bought your story from Amazon and read it last night, it was very enjoyable and the ending was very satisfying. You may have written it years ago, but the message (backed by facts) is even more timely today. I urge you to promote this book.”
SA storyteller
“Dex’s book is great, i really enjoyed it.” Youth worker.
“I laughed out loud.” Sustainability Consultant.
“Jungle Rock is very good indeed. Please send me ten copies.” Writer, producer.
and from a twelve year old who recently read it and was laughing out loud quite a few times: “It’s really funny, you should write another one.” Which is lovely as that is what i am currently doing….
Jungle Rock itself though was written and drawn up in the very early 90’s after watching Adrian Cowell’s the Decade of Destruction” charting the destruction of the Amazon in the 1980’s. Tragically a great many of the difficult and fact based stories Dex’s humorous adventures encountered (highlighted in small boxes woven within the book called ecofaxes) continue to resurge as issues today.
Spoiler Alert: some Ecofax updates for contemporary readers, but will contain spoilers so you may prefer to read the graphic novel first.
Page 7: Ecofax on Pepe and Spix Macaws. Sadly since writing Jungle Rock in 1993 the Spix Macaw have been officially declared extinct in the wild, the last wild bird likely perishing in 2000, seven years after Dex met Pepe, though the official declaration has only just been made in 2018. The illegal trade in birds combined with loss of habitat were the two major factors in this occurring. https://owlcation.com/stem/Facts-About-the-Spixs-Macaw-Extinct-in-the-Wild
Page 15 Ecofax on Scientific Whaling: Here is a link sharing about the unscientific nature of “scientific” whaling: https://awionline.org/content/scientific-whaling
And another in relation to Japan who have now left the International whaling Commission (the IWC) and intend to more overtly carry out commercial whaling, weirdly enough subsidised by the government: https://us.whales.org/our-4-goals/stop-whaling/whaling-in-japan/
Page 20 Ecofax: in recent years rather than small peasant farmers being given land, “agribusiness” on a larger scale in particular for soy and beef production is a leading driver both of forest loss and human rights abuses. An estimated 90% of deforestation in the Brazillian Amazon is due to agribusiness activities. Hours after taking office Brazil’s newest President “launched an assault on environmental and amazon protections with an executive order transferring the regulation and creation of new indigenous reserves to the agriculture ministry – which is controlled by the powerful agribusiness lobby ,” and this at a time when deforestation is rising: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/24/brazil-records-worst-annual-deforestation-for-a-decade
At the beginning of 2019 asset managers Backrock, State St and Vanguard all are considerable shareholders in the five main companies operating agribusiness in the Brazilian Amazon – New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/29/opinion/bolsanaro-wants-to-plunder-the-amazon-dont-let-him.html
This article points to the Uk’s continued fuelling of deforestation through consumption: https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-crisis-consumerism-demand-goods-uk-amazon-brazil-fires-a9610276.html
Page 27 : In terms of first people’s of the Amazon, Amazonwatch are a very good organisation campaigning for indigenous rights https://amazonwatch.org/work.
Also Survival International. ***Please see below for latest information in relation to the Ureu wau wau.
A 2010 award winning film Birdwatchers (rating 15) offers some idea of how it has become for some of the Amazon’s original peoples https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/birdwatchers
Page 29 Ecofax in relation to logging: In a 2008 report “illegal wood for the European market” it states up to 80% of timber is logged illegally. Selective logging was still the main opener up of the Amazon with for every mahogany tree felled an estimated further 27 trees are damaged, 40 metres of new road built and 600 m2 opened up in the forest canopy. In 2016 Human rights watch dog Global witness revealed that fifty forest protecting activists were killed in Brazil in 2015 many directly trying to stop illegal logging. This is the tip of the iceberg of human costs. That 33 died in the Phillipines, and 26 in Columbia for similar reasons shows that Brazil is not alone in the stakes being high in these tragic conflicts. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/25/illegal-logging-amazon-timber-toughter-laws-british-products
*** Page 30 Ecofax: re the Urue wau wau.
Here is the most up to date link I can find in relation to the Urue wau wau sadly pointing to their protected lands once more being drastically affected by invasion. https://graphics.reuters.com/BRAZIL-INDIGENOUS/010090X815D/index.html