Although global environmental problems created by the disappearance of tropical rain forests are all too well known, the forests themselves--vast in size and rich in diversity--are the least understood of the world's ecosystems.

This book presents one researcher's view of Southeast Asia's tropical rainforests, based on a quarter century of fieldwork in a wide range of forest types. Moving from the mangrove of the coastal belt, inland through freshwater and peat swamp forests, to the lowly dipterocarp forests of the heartlands, and up to the montane forests, the author's lively account contains a wealth of detailed observations that effectively communicate the complex natural structure of tropical rain forests while providing the reader with candid first impressions--mud, mosquitoes, and all.