Overview

Ethical Debates in Orangutan Conservation explores how conservationists decide whether, and how, to undertake rehabilitation and reintroduction (R&R) when rescuing orphaned orangutans. The author demonstrates that exploring ethical dilemmas is crucial for understanding ongoing disagreements about how to help endangered wildlife in an era of anthropogenic extinction. Although R&R might appear an uncontroversial activity, there is considerable debate about how, and why, it ought to be practised. Drawing on in-depth qualitative research with orangutan conservation practitioners, this book examines how ethical trade-offs shape debates about R&R. For example, what if the orphan fails to learn how to be an orangutan again, after years in the company of humans? What if she is sent into the forest only to slowly starve? Would she have been better off in a cage? Could the huge cost of sending a rescued ape back to the wild be better spent on stopping deforestation in the first place? Or do we have a moral obligation to rescue the orphan regardless of cost? This book demonstrates that deconstructing ethical positions is crucial for understanding ongoing disagreements about how to help our endangered great ape kin and other wildlife. Ethical Debates in Orangutan Conservation is essential reading for those interested in conservation and animal welfare, animal studies, primatology, geography, environmental philosophy, and anthropology.

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9781032238067

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Reviews

Masterfully weaving together rich ethnographic fieldwork with poignant scholarly analysis, Ethical Questions in Orangutan Conservation is a must-read for scholars and practitioners who are willing to stay with the trouble and to consider the real-life dilemmas of saving while sacrificing nonhuman animals in the Anthropocene. - Irus Braverman, author of Coral Whisperers: Scientists on the Brink Via a thoroughly anthropological lens Palmer takes us through the biopolitics of orangutan conservation and much, much more. Her theme of triage and her deft interweaving of multiple intellectual and methodological threads produces an engaging, highly complex, and totally fascinating view into core dilemmas of the Anthropocene. - Agustin Fuentes, The Edmund P. Joyce C.S.C. Professor of Anthropology, Chair of the Department of Anthropology

Author Information

Alexandra Palmer is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Geography at the University of Oxford, with a background in social anthropology and primatology. Her work centres around ethical dimensions of human relationships with other animals, especially non-human primates. Ethical Debates in Orangutan Conservation is based on her doctoral work at University College London. Her other research has looked at zookeeper–orangutan relationships and ethics and regulation in non-laboratory animal research (including with wildlife).

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