Amazon.com Review
In the 1960s, the legendary paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey encouraged a trio of remarkable woman scientists--Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas--to study the world's great primates. In her memoir
Reflections of Eden, written long after her fellow "trimates" published theirs, Galdikas described her efforts at Camp Leakey to rehabilitate ex-captive orangutans and release them into the nearby Borneo rainforest.
Those rehabilitation efforts became the center of controversies that swirl around Galdikas and the organization she helped found, Orangutan Foundation International. A debate about the effectiveness of rehabilitation reached a fever pitch in the late 1990s with the publication of several articles and books about Galdikas by Canadian novelist Linda Spalding. In A Dark Place in the Jungle, Spalding suggests that Galdikas's efforts in the name of conservation may in fact harm wild orangutan populations. Galdikas herself is characterized as an imperious and careless scientist, which no doubt played a role in Galdikas's decision in July 1999 to sue Spalding for libel.
What then are we to make of this book by Galdikas and her longtime collaborator Nancy Briggs? There is no dispute whatsoever about their primary message: orangutans are seriously endangered. Palm oil plantations, bush fires, and other intense human pressures are destroying millions of acres of orangutan habitat. The recently deposed Indonesian government of Suharto was notoriously corrupt and adopted policies that led to large-scale deforestation, although its legacy is treated gingerly by Galdikas, who lives there when she isn't teaching at the University of British Columbia. The close-up photographs that accompany their text show orangutans as full of personality, mischief, and devotion as humans. Perhaps, as Spalding suggests, that's part of the problem. It may be too easy to project anthropocentric values onto orangutans, which, after all, share 97 percent of their genetic heritage with humans.
It is difficult to judge either case on its merits since the books share similar flaws: neither presents notes or bibliography to document its arguments. So read them both. The gravely threatened orangutans deserve as much attention as they can get. --Pete Holloran
From Publishers Weekly
Memorable, informal and attractive, this volume describes the affectionate, energetic primates among whom Galdikas has spent much of her life. Galdikas, Jane Goodall and the late Dian Fossey began their careers as students of the illustrious paleontologist Louis Leakey; all three have since gained worldwide attention for their struggles to understand and save the great apes. In fluid prose, Galdikas and Briggs (director of education at Orangutan Foundation International) describe the extinct proto-orang Gigantopithecus; laud a charismatic orang named Kusasi; examine behaviors like nest building, grooming and foraging; and explain what makes orangutans "the best mothers in the world." Charming and individual, orangutans also develop ingenious routines designed (for example) to render edible certain wild fruits--one that oozes latex when pierced, another whose burrs must be rubbed off on a branch. Wildlife photographer Amman adds 100 compelling color photographs, certainly part of the book's reason for existing: these show the cute Indonesian apes yawning, screaming, smiling, sniffing a flower, caressing one another's bellies and swinging from branch to branch. Galdikas and Briggs combine their warm and informal descriptions of life among the orangutans with arguments about their worrisome future. Indonesia is rapidly losing its tropical wilderness, and "to save the orangutan, the forest must be preserved." Some endangered animals can't be returned to the wild after being raised in captivity; for orangutans, however, raise-and-release programs are appropriate, though no substitute for saving their habitat. Final segments depict the rehabilitation programs, the forests they use and the destructive logging that threatens this species along with so many others. Jane Goodall proffers an introduction. (Dec.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
