When Esther Alm and her husband settled in Bulwer in the South African province of KwaZulu Natal in 1980 they immediately began to explore their environment. They had spent holidays in the area before - and had already climbed Mahwaqa (Bulwer mountain) several times. Esther writes: 'From those early days right up to my last climb in 2010, I kept dated records of what we saw and experienced. When I looked at these records again, I could calculate that I had climbed to the summit of the mountain over 600 times in the nearly 30 years I lived in Bulwer.'

Do other-than-human animals matter morally? Most, if not all, reasonable people think they do. But, if they can be shown to possess characteristics and abilities that would qualify them for having moral standing, what exactly is the extent of this status?