In Quarterly Essay 45, Us and Them: On the Importance of Animals, Anna Krien, above, travels to Indonesia to investigate the live cattle trade, where she spends time in the abattoirs and wet markets, interviews cattle importers and local workers in the slaughter houses, and looks at the effect of the 2011 live export ban. She also examines the animal testing and scientific experiments taking place in labs around Australia, and looks at the decline of apex predators, dingoes and wolves, and the impact of this on the environment.
As humans encroach on the wild and a vast wave of extinctions gathers force, how has our relationship with animals changed?
In this dazzling essay, Anna Krien investigates the world we have made and the complexity of the choices we face.
This is a clear-eyed meditation on humanity and animality, us and them, that shows how we should – and do – treat our fellow creatures.
“I am not weighing up whether our treatment of animals is just, because it isn’t. That age-old debate is a farce – deep down we all know it. The real question is, just how much of this injustice are we prepared to live with?” Anna Krien, Us and Them
Anna Krien’s first book, Into the Woods: The Battle for Tasmania’s Forests, won the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction and the Victorian Premier’s People’s Choice Award. Her writing has been published in the Monthly, the Age, The Best Australian Essays, The Best Australian Stories and the Big Issue.
Elisabeth Young Publicity Manager Black Inc./Quarterly Essay
