Junglekeeper: What it Takes to Change the World

by Paul Rosolie

Rating: 7/10

Summary

This book is very similar to Paul's other book (Mother of God) and many of the stories are interleaved in that book's timeline. Essentially the first half of this book is more stories from Paul's Childhood like his adventures in India or more stories with JJ.
Though THe second half focuses more on the events between the publishing of Mother of God and this book. Paul mentions the difficulty of protecting the Las Piedras area after Emma had sold the lodge, how Emma's leaving and taking Joseph with her affected JJ and Paul talking about his own difficulties with marriage and how he'd divorced Gowri (The girl he was in love with in the first book).
Paul then continues about the tension with other family members, that he'd been 30 years old with no income and still living his dreams in the Amazon while family members were encouraging him to get a real job as what he was doing was unsustainable.
Paul then talks about his struggle during covid where Junglekeepers lost their main source of income (Tours) as travel was closed and Peru's struggle during covid where he had to send all of Junglekeeper's savings to the people in Peru as they couldn't afford oxygen tanks.
_ He then struggles while telling the story where he'd given up all hope and talks to Mohsin (A friend he made who's also from New York) telling him that he'll quit and start looking for a 'real job' then Mohsin tells him to never say that again.
Next he explains how we got in touch with Dax Da silva (Junglekeeper's main investor) almost right after the call with Mohsin and how they assembled a task force made up of former loggers to become rangers and to help protect the forest.
He also mentions his various meetings with Jane Goodall and how she encouraged him through tough times and he uses the quote that the brick walls are there to stop anyone who doesn't want it bad enough from reaching his goals.

Notes

I really liked the 50 or so pages when he talks about how they almost failed due to covid and how they barely succeeded, it feels very similar to stories of various startups but still feels vastly different. Though it does explain how when you care deeply about something then you want it to happen then it eventually happens.
Though I felt the timeline was a bit weird especially that I read the Mother of God book right before this one which probably wasn't the author's intention. But I believe that you should read Mother of God before reading this book though leave a decent amount of time between reading both.