The Jungle at the Door: A Glimpse of Wild India

Like millions of other children worldwide, Joan Myers was inspired at an early age by Rudyard Kipling's stories and books about the jungles of India. And, so, given the opportunity to visit some of India's wildlife refuges, she jumped at the chance. The Jungle at the Dooris the result of that experience. Through the miracle of photography and through the beholding eye of a master photographer such as Myers, we are able to experience the land and life in one of India's last remaining jungles?Bandhavgarh National Park?and in the communities that sit at the park's edge. This is the land of the tiger and elephant and monkey and a treasure trove of other species, but, as noted writer William deBuys shares in his provocative text, the natural habitat for wild animals is shrinking at an alarming rate due to increasing development and industrialization. Tigers, for example, are now extinct in ninety-three percent of their historical range, and, without wildlife refuges, their numbers would surely plummet further. Few citizens of the world will ever get to experience first-hand the jungles and wild places of India, except through imaginative books such as Kipling's. Joan Myers wished to pay homage to that literary legacy and to the concept of wildlife conservation by sharing her experience visually. Now we can get a close look at jungle life, and share in Myers's experience of discovery, and witness the excitement of coming upon wild game in a moment's notice, even as we admire the surrounding communities and their cultural landscapes that seem to blend in effortlessly with the adjacent wilderness. The Jungle at the Dooris that rare glimpse into another world, a world that depends not only on human awareness of what is lost when the jungle is gone, but also the courage and foresight to preserve remaining wild places everywhere, from India to our own home ground.