Bay View Association's The Big Read

About Kinari Webb 

American writer and environmentalist Bill McKibben called Kinari Webb’s?Guardians of the Trees?a “magnificent, empowering” memoir about a woman spearheading a global initiative to heal the world’s rainforests and the communities who depend on them.? 

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Webb realized her true calling was at the intersection of medicine and conservation after traveling at age 21 to Indonesian Borneo to study orangutans. She was both awestruck by the beauty of her surroundings and heartbroken by the rainforest destruction she witnessed. As she got to know the local communities, she realized their need to pay for expensive healthcare led directly to the rampant logging, which in turn imperiled their health and safety even further.? 

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When the Yale School of Medicine graduate returned to Borneo, she founded two non-profits, and worked with local rainforest communities and international teams to build a clinic, develop regenerative economies, provide educational opportunities, and dramatically transform the region. ?Just as everything was going right, Webb was stung by a deadly box jellyfish and would spend the next four years fighting for her life—a fight that would lead her to rethink everything.?