Routledge
Ethical Debates in Orangutan Conservation
Key Metrics
- Alexandra Palmer
- Routledge
- Paperback
- 9781032238067
- -
- -
- Nature > Animals - Primates
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
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.
Author Bio
Alexandra Palmer is the Nora E. Vaughan Fashion Costume Senior Curator and Chair of the Veronika Gervers Research Fellowship in Textiles & Costume at the ROM, and a Co-curator of BIG, the latest exhibit in the Patricia Harris Gallery of Textiles & Costume. She is cross appointed and teaches in Fine Art History at the University of Toronto, and the Graduate Programme in Art History at York University, and the School of Graduate Studies at Ryerson University.
A Canadian born in Greece and raised in England, Alexandra received her Bachelor of Arts in Art History from the University of Toronto, her M.A. in the History of Costume & Textiles from New York University in conjunction with the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum and her PhD in Design History from the University of Brighton.
Before she came to the ROM in 1997 she was Assistant Professor for Craft and Design History at Nova Scotia College of Art. At the ROM she has curated Measure for Measure (1989) in the Samuel European Galleries, Au Courant: Contemporary Canadian Fashion (1997) and Papiers à la Mode for The Institute of Contemporary Culture (2001), as well as Unveiling the Textiles & Costume Collection (spring 2002) , Elite Elegance: Couture in the Feminine Fifties (November 2002- spring 2003) and the exhibits in the Patricia Harris Gallery of Textiles & Costume since it opened in 2007.
Education
B.A., Art History, University of Toronto, 1979
M.A., History of Costume and Textiles (in conjunction with the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art), New York University, 1981
Ph.D., Design History, University of Brighton, England, 1995
Source: University of Toronto
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