A Dark Place in the Jungle (G K Hall Large Print Book Series)

Rating:
Summary: Good points made poorly
Review:

This book deserves credit for pointing out the mistakes made by Galdikas in Tanjung Puting National Park.
These include swarming a natural habitat with tamed apes that can never become wild again but pass on human diseases to the wild population and outcompete them for food in the area.
It also reveals how OFI "volunter-programs" and "study tours" were little more than overpriced package tours for naive animal lovers, simply aimed at making cash.
In that respect, it is a real eye-opener which is also very accessible to the general reader.
In fact the publication of this book has already caused OFI/Galdikas to address some of the issues publicized in it!
Thus the author has probably achieved more than the she had hoped for.

On the downside I found it somewhat poorly-researched.
It is obvious that Spalding knows very little about the culture, fauna, and conservation issues of Indonesia.
She seems also rather naive - all information obtained from Indonesians on her short trips to Borneo is taken at face-value.
The book is also quite unbalanced - Galdikas is put in an all negative light, ignoring the postive aspects of her long work in the area.
Finally, I also found the book too personal - Spalding speaks way too much about herself, which has bored me though may interest others...

For those with a serious interest in the issues raised in this book I recommend reading: "Our Vanishing Relative: The Status of Wild Orang-Utans at the Close of the Twentieth Century" by H. D. Rijksen & E. Meijaard which is a proffessional summary of all facts and aspects of the conservation of these great apes.

Rating:
Summary: disappointing
Review: I had high hopes for this book. When reading about Dian Fossey, the most controversial of Leakey's protegees, I found that the books "The Dark Romance of Dian Fossey" by Hayes and "Woman of the Mists" by Mowat were indispensible companions to Fossey's own "Gorillas of the Mist". These two books provided a balanced perspective of Fossey, by potraying her violence towards poachers and willingness to break laws, but stressing her intentions- to save the few hundred mountain gorillas that were left. "A Dark Place in the Jungle", unfortunately, falls short of offering any perspective on Birute Galdikas. In fact, Galdikas is put on the back burner to make room for the author's insights on conservation and motherhood. Not that Spalding's insights are bad, actually I think this book would have worked had she focused on "women's journeys" or something similar, and left Galdikas out of it, because a much of the book is an account of her own self-discovery in Indonesia, her relationship with her daughters, and what she learned from Riska, her Indonesian tour guide. But her haphazard attempts to "research" Galdikas are unforgivable. She has a few conversations with Galdikas's aquantiances, and her arguments against Galdikas can be summed up in three statements: Galdikas is lacking a research permit, Galdikas has orangutans in her home, and Galdikas was rude to her. I don't doubt the first two statements (Indonesia has a very different concept of rudeness, however, for example it is not rude to keep someone waiting for hours) but Spalding provides us only with evidence against Galdikas. There are no interviews with Galdikas' friends or relatives, and Spalding barely speaks to Galdikas herself (although she does try) and the whole case against Galdikas is very one-sided. What caused Galdikas to change from researcher to surrogate mother of baby orangutans? What motivates her to break the law? Spalding doesn't try to answer.

This book tries to be too much and fails on both counts. If Spalding wanted to write a personal story or a bunch of travel essays, she would have done a fine job had she left Galdikas out of it. If she wanted to write about Galdikas, then she should have stopped talking about herself, and dug deeper into her research. She's barely scratched the surface.

For those interested in Galdikas, I recommend you skip this book, read "Reflections of Eden" for her side of the story and the chapter on Borneo in Karesh's "Appointment at the Ends of the Earth" for a view from one of her critics. (Karesh, a wildlife vet, spells out what's wrong with Galdikas and her orgination more thoroughly in one chapter than Spalding does in 300 pages.) For a balanced account, the best you can do for now is "Walking With the Great Apes" by Sy Montgomery, which about Galdikas, as well as Fossey and Jane Goodall. A book devoted entirely to Galdikas which addresses critics' accusations and provides insight into her life and work has yet to be written.

Rating:
Summary: A Dark Place in the Heart
Review: It depresses me greatly to think of all the money, time and energy spent in the making of this book. Instead of trying to do something constructive for the endangered orangutan, Linda Spalding does her best to try to tarnish the reputation of Biruté Galdikas, the famous hard-working researcher and orangutan supporter. The author of this badly researched book must have been desperate to be published and therefore discarded any decency, honesty and respectability to have a little fame and fortune. There are multiple issues involved in the attempts to save an endangered species from extinction; one of many is creating alternative means of employment for the people who are destroying the rainforests, i.e., the precious habitat of orangutans and many other species. Instead of attempting to delve into these complexities, the author chose to act on her pre-formed opinion of Biruté Galdikas and attempted to prove her invalid theory of the scientist. I thought that the main human threats to the endangered apes in Africa and Indonesia were the illegal loggers, gold miners, corrupt politicians and greedy poachers for 'bushmeat'. But the author of this book proved me wrong. She knows that the pen is mightier than the sword. Linda Spalding did not have to get her hands dirty by killing orangutans or destroying their habitat herself...she simply did all in her power to attempt to destroy the reputation of a famous, meticulous, passionate, courageous, and tireless research scientist and orangutan activist. A horrible outcome of this author's pathetic attempt at self-promotion is that potential supporters of the Orangutan Foundation International may think twice about donating their time and/or money to the cause if they stumble across this biased, ill-informed book. Thanks to Linda Spalding, the orangutans of Borneo and Sumatra have yet another reason to fear extinction.