Environmental Profiles.

The genesis for Environmental Profiles can be traced back to a passing conversation that Sharon Matola, an animal researcher from Belize, had with a friend about her study of tapirs, a large, nocturnal "ungulate" (hoofed mammal) that is at risk of extinction. How, Matola's friend asked, could scientists researching this fairly obscure animal find each other and share information? It wouldn't be easy, replied Matola, director of the Belize Zoo and Tropical Education Center, because there wasn't a comprehensive international reference that listed who was doing research in particular areas or issues--or where they could be found.

Matola's curious friend, Bob Honig, a Washington, D.C.-based lawyer and public policy analyst, was surprised that no one had thought to fill this niche. "A light went off in my head that this would be a valuable project," says Honig. He talked the idea over with two former co-workers from his Capitol Hill days, Sarah Orrick, who edits the Congressional Digest and The Almanac of American Politics, and Linda Sobel Katz, a political communications consultant. The three found a publisher and went to work.

For a year, under the guidance of a distinguished advisory board, Katz, Honig, and Orrick sent out surveys and corresponded with governments, grassroots groups, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and individuals throughout the world, ending up with crates full of information in eight languages. Katz and her colleagues recruited interns to help sift through the piles filling her garage, got help in translating responses, and within a year they had a book.

Environmental Profiles, which has an introduction by U.S. Vice President Al Gore, covers more than 140 countries and turns out to be a story book of sorts as well as a reference: entries tell you the history behind the organizations and individuals profiled, and explain their ongoing work. "It was our desire to make grassroots environmentalists at either end of the globe aware of each other," says Honig. In all, the book profiles nearly 3,000 people and some 7,000 projects, programs, and campaigns, and includes an extensive index and appendixes on biodiversity, population planning, health, sustainable development and seven other key issue areas. A typical entry also lists resources the organization is seeking--a feature that makes the book a bulletin board for the environmental community.

Some of the logistical difficulties of gathering information from so many places may have contributed to the uniqueness--as well as the size--of this five-pound book. The editors allowed organizations to send brochures or other promotional materials in lieu of filling out the surveys, in hopes that people would be more likely to respond. Although this meant that they didn't always get all the information they wanted, having the brochures as sources no doubt helped to give many entries a distinct cultural voice and perspective that is a rare departure from the clipped, encyclopedic tones of most reference books. The entry on the Dolphin Research Foundation, an NGO based at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu, for example, quotes the foundation in explaining that it works to conserve the river dolphin and its habitat in Nepal "by harnessing the symbolic value of dolphin as a mark of river quality and holy symbol of river Ganga." And Chang Xiaoqing, foreign affairs editor for China Environment News ("the first national newspaper dealing with environmental protection in the world"), writes that, "According to the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, environmentalists should closely contact each other, discuss strategy for global environmental protection, learn from each other."

Honig, Orrick, and Katz hope that the book will make the kind of international exchange Chang Xiaoqing calls for much easier. Now that the first edition is out, they are looking for funding from corporations or foundations to provide the book free of charge to grassroots environmental groups that can't afford the $125 cost. They are also exploring other ways to get the book out, such as an on-line computer version, Honig says.

Linda Sobel Katz hopes that young people looking for public service careers will find the book inspiring. "One thing about this book that makes me hopeful," she says "is that it offers so many directions for young people to go in to do good in the world."

As for Sharon Matola, who inadvertently but fortuitously inspired the creation of the very reference source she had wished for, a quick look through Environmental Profiles' index will give her more than a dozen pages on which to find her fellow tapir researchers, who--it turns out--are scattered from Bolivia to Britain to the Netherlands.