Guest essay by Eric Worrall
If there is one climate program which should have died in a welter of shame, that programme is third world conservation programmes, programmes which have reportedly already caused mayhem in places where government backed forces have committed atrocities to drive farmers and tribes out of nature reserves.
Forests provide a critical short-term solution to climate change
22 JUN 2018
To prevent the worst consequences of climate change, we need to act now.
There is a “catastrophic climate gap” between the commitments that countries have made under the Paris Climate Agreement and the emissions reductions required to avoid the worst consequences of global warming, according to UN Environment’s Emissions Gap Report 2017.
The Paris Agreement aims to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2˚ Celsius, and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5˚ Celsius.
Current pledges from governments represent only about half of what would be required to avoid a 2˚C temperature rise, and just one third of what’s required to limit warming to 1.5˚C.
While this “emissions gap” is significant, UN Environment suggests it can still be closed in a cost-effective manner.
One of the major contributors to closing the gap is forests.
The good news here is that 6.3 gigatons (billion tons) of carbon dioxide emission reductions have already been reported over the past six years from forests in Brazil, Ecuador, Malaysia and Colombia alone under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), according to the UNFCCC Lima Hub. This is equivalent to more than the annual emissions of the United States.
“This is a significant step forward, showing that forests can be a central part of the solution to climate change,” says the head of the UN-REDD Programme Secretariat, Mario Boccucci. “We have an unprecedented opportunity: political will, know-how, finance. Now we need to build on progress and scale up rapidly in the coming years.”
…
Protecting forests, including mangroves, makes climate action cheaper and faster. We need to build the political case for this across all countries.
“The Emissions Gap Report once again underscores the urgency of redoubling our efforts to reduce emissions,” says UN Environment climate change expert Niklas Hagelberg.
“It shows that solutions exist, and if they are adopted quickly we can turn our current situation around. But with each year we wait, we make our ability to limit dangerous climate change more difficult, risky and costly.”
Even the Guardian has noted the connection between offering large cash grants to tyrants in return for declaring regions off limits to humans, and vicious attacks against people living in the affected regions;
The tribes paying the brutal price of conservation
John Vidal
Sun 28 Aug 2016 17.00 AESTAcross the world, governments are protecting habitats. But indigenous peoples are being evicted
The Botswana police helicopter spotted Tshodanyestso Sesana and his friends in the afternoon. The nine young Bushmen, or San, had been hunting antelope to feed their families, when the chopper flew towards them.
There was a burst of gunfire from the air and the young men dropped their meat and skins and fled. Largely through luck, no one was hit, but within minutes armed troops arrived in a jeep and the nine were arrested, stripped naked, beaten and then detained for several days for poaching in a nature reserve.
Welcome to 21st-century life in the vast Central Kalahari game park, an ancient hunting ground for the San, but now off-limits to the people who forged their history there. The brutal incident took place last week, just days after Botswana’s wildlife minister Tshekedi Khama, the brother of President Ian Khama, announced a shoot-on-sight policy on poachers.
Khama claims the policy, which is supported by conservation groups, will deter poaching and the illegal wildlife trade, which is widely seen by Europe and the US as disastrous for biodiversity. But there are no rare or endangered species such as elephants or rhinos in the areas where the bushmen hunt. Sending a helicopter gunship and armed guards to arraign the hunters looks rather like an escalation of the low-grade war that Botswana has waged for years on one of the most vulnerable indigenous groups in the world.
…
The damage is not limited to shooting down tribespeople from helicopter gunships. In Ivory Coast, poor farmers who are trying to produce cocoa are being pressured to pay large bribes to be allowed to work their farms in “conservation areas”.
… The government of Ivory Coast took action recently against cocoa-driven deforestation by expelling cocoa farmers from Mount Péko National Park (which means “mountain of hyenas” in the local Gueré language). According to a report by Human Rights Watch and the Ivorian Coalition of Human Rights (RAIDH), the evictions were poorly planned and carried out in violation of human rights standards. When we visited Mount Péko after the eviction, we found the park once again filled with cocoa smallholders who had returned. Some smallholders explained to us that when they finally returned to Mount Péko, they simply paid the authorities higher bribes to go back to cultivating their lands in the park. …
Read more: http://www.mightyearth.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/chocolates_dark_secret_english_web.pdf
Lets see – large numbers of skilled but very poor farmers in Africa trying to make an honest living being backed into a corner, forced to pay large bribes, their families brutalised by armed thugs. Its pretty obvious what will happen next, and when it does, Western green policies will bear the ultimate blame.
Update (EW): Fixed a typo (h/t Rick Rigazio)
You can’t mean “conversation areas”, can you?
Fixed, thanks.
That could have been correct. Leftist thugs also assault people in “conversation areas”.
The UNDP’s SDG program is a cruel hoax. Please see
https://ssrn.com/abstract=2812034
Sufficient reason to defund and disband this group of out-of-control bureaucrats.
An ugly combination of a general lack of property rights in those countries, combined with the callousness and general misanthropy of the greens.
Plus, sadly, over-officious, or venal, authorities.
At some levels, at least.
Auto
The greens dont care who they hurt as long as Mother Earth doesnt suffer. See this video by George Carlin
https://ca.video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-rogers-rogers_001&hsimp=yhs-rogers_001&hspart=rogers&p=george+carlin+mother+earth+video#id=3&vid=d7b055a5731e70d128ae14d681e8c228&action=click
Trump should cut the U.S. funding to the UN and we’ll see what they have to say after that happens.
UN is just so comical. Borneo, Sumatra, and Amazon are being leveled; just takes more time to obliterate the lungs of the earth. Borneo is cooked, just like turning Libya into a Democracy for all to prosper.
These people don’t give a squat about the environment. Not one whit.
Hey Koko, when is the last time you visited any of the three regions you declare are being levelled?
Kokoda, the Amazon forest is not the “lungs of the Earth”, that is another myth. You could cut it all down and nothing would happen, not that it would be all cut down, any more than Canada or the US. I’m sure Brazil can sustainably log the forest, like anywhere else.
Ah! The lack of information is strong with this one.
There is archaeological evidence showing that the Amazon was subjected to clear-cutting practices by local aboriginal tribes in Bolivia and Brazil long before Europeans went there.
https://www.livescience.com/46682-earthen-rings-predate-amazon-rainforest.html
Everything changes over time, whether the Ecohippies and Greenbeans like it or not.
Did you even read the article, Sara? It says that the structures found pre-date the rainforest.
“The earthworks predate this shift, which reveals that the diggers of these ditches created them before the forest moved in around them. They continued to live in the area as it became forested, probably keeping clear regions around their structures, Carson said.
“‘It kind of makes sense,’ he said. ‘It’s easier to stomp on a sapling than it is to cut down a big Amazonian tree with a stone ax.'”
They didn’t cut them down, they burned them down.
That the ruins weren’t built amongst the trees is not evidence that there was no forest there prior to the buildings.
Mark, you obviously didn’t read the article, either.
Sometimes I just have to laugh at your dumb comments. So, according to you, they burned tropical rainforest without cutting it down. You are revealing how totally clueless you are, Mark. Have you even been in tropical rainforest? I spent years studying it. Have you visited the Amazon? I have – my uncle was a civil engineer there for the Jari Project. Burn the rainforest! That’s hilarious.
Then, according to you, they dug “massive earthworks in the form of ditches up to 16 feet (5 meters) deep, and often just as wide” while these “dead” trees were left standing. Huh. Or do you suggest that you could burn the forest completely, so that nothing is left standing? Perhaps they got out their stone bulldozers to take care of the rest.
You really love to tell me I can’t reason and don’t know what I’m talking about, and that I just repeat what I heard from my professors 30 years ago. But you’ve shown time and again that it is you who thoughtlessly fight what I say regardless of its merit. You reveal your ignorance, lack of reason, and foolish, erroneous assumptions about my ideas, knowledge and background, and would be much better off holding your tongue.
Nor do they give a squat about people beyond their most immediate.
Greens and Globalists justify their actions “to save the planet”, but the real underlying motiviation is to prevent/delay/control the development of developing nations in my opinion. Human Beings instinctively fear the rise of other groups/nations/races. Human history is a litany of bloodshed and suffering by one group taking over another.
It is interesting to see that some of those who emit, net, the least carbon-dioxide in the world are suddenly important as saviours of the planet by their involuntary sacrifice. It is not every day that one discovers key groups of emitters willing to accept abuse and exploitation for the greater good.
The big question in Africa is ‘the land issue’ as very little of the land is owned, and outside urban areas, nearly none. The indegenes have never had property rights in the conventional sense. Even if they did, a government can overrule them to impose restrictions on hunting and fishing. In Canada this was resolved by granting aboriginal rights to hunt and fish all year for sustenance. This has not been done in the case of the San. A. Few thousand San harvesting some of the antelope in the vast Kalahari could easily be arranged and legalised. They could even be asked to target certain species naturally in excess due to the dearth of predators.
Native forests in Ghana (etc) have cocoa trees so farming reserves should be compatible with food cropping. In Indonesia the forests are managed as giant permaculture plantations – to a far greater extent than meets the eye of a visitor. Natural forests and nature reserves and game parks should have resident populations because people are and have always been ‘there’. The idea that we are foreigners in our own lands is incorrect.
Another neat little story telling the consequence of there being too many people.
Also telling of closed blinkered minds trapped inside Magical Thought Bubbles (MTB) – the entire UN of course but also out there ‘at large’.
Inside UK farming goes a saying, spoken with Dark Jest or Wicked Homuour. – because Brits are like that.
It says that:
Take that away and chew it over. Think about it.
The rationale is very similar to that of Radical Feminism. The Feminists patently dislike boys/men/males BUT, they want to be equal with them and do all the things boys do.
Including seemingly, being horrible to girls. How did it get so crazy.
Basically, everyone hates farmers as money grubbing toffs, in-breeds, wildlife blasting, mud-on-the-road leavers living a high old life driving around in expensive SUVs and stonkingly expensive houses.
And food is ALWAYS too expensive – despite easily being less than 20% of its inflation adjusted real value from barely 70 years ago.
IOW, the Magical Thought Bubble deliberately misunderstands farmers/foresters/hunters/gatherers and what they do.
You know me. Where am I going?
The MTB doesn’t know about, doesn’t want to know about soil & dirt and what it actually does.
Some people, even supposed clear thinkers around here, imagine that you can keep planting/growing stuff (wheat, corn, rice, trees) and remove the crop from where it was grown without any effect on the soil.
The plants will just keep popping right back up ad infinitum.
From somebody who was ‘on the inside track’ – that ain’t so and this little essay here is actually all about the consequences of plants NOT just popping right back up and begging to be chopped, burned and eaten.
spot on. not one weed clipping or scrap of wood leaves my property. if it grew here it stays to decompose and return the minerals to my soils, fire ash and bought food scrap included after the chooks process them;-)
I hate acronyms… what do IOW and MTB stand for…
Isle of Wight?
Motor Torpedo Boats?
“Magical Thought Bubbles (MTB) ”
In other words
Peta: Consequence of too many people? You think these forest people are being abused because 5hey are too many. That’s a scary thought.
Exactly. I have a small yard that is lush and green because if my neighbor mows it, we do NOT rake up the clippings. They form a mat that helps hold water in the soil during dry spells and acts as an aerator in the cold season. I also mulch up the leaves blown over my yard in the fall, because they represent more fertilizer and it’s all free, thanks to Momma Nature’s way of doing things.
My little lawn looks like green velvet. I show pictures of it to the guys at the hardware store. They ask me what I put on it. I tell them grass clippings, mulched leaves and water. And we’ve had so much rain in June that I don’t even have to water it now. More expected by Thursday.
And these same jacka$$es demand that America feed all these displaced people and pay them for abusing said displaced peoples. Long past time we kicked the UN out of America and took all our money back, by armed force where needed.
The same people who want to deny locals the right to farm, also want to deny them the right to make an income from sustainable use of wildlife….. which means the much-maligned “trophy. hunting”..
Like it or not, only trophy hunting makes a few old males, the most easily spared segment of any population , so valuable that it gives the locals an incentive to preserve the whole population.
Meat hunting is not only one of the most significant causes of wildlife decline in modern Africa, with its rapidly expanding human population, but it reduces each animal to no more value than the equivalent sized goat or cow, so don’t be surprised when wildlife is replaced with livestock.
Most of the land involved is not attractive to photo-tourists, so poor, hungry Africans have few options if they cannot make wildlife pay for itself.
They have a saying…… “If it pays, it stays”.
The UN-REDD Programme, based on the Biggest Lie in human history, that lifegiving CO2 is an evil planet-destroying gas, is one that is ready-made for corruption and fra*d. And Gang Green simply turns a blind eye. They don’t give a sheet, as long as they get their cut. Disgusting.
The paradox, the hypocrisy of the environmentalists and socioeconomic left is profoundly amazing. In the USA, South Africa and elsewhere European settlers are considered racist and evil, even accused of genocide. And it is the Left that scream such insults today. Indeed in past times white settlers did horrible things to the native people. The Left ignore real history and say little about extreme brutality and genocide when a dictator or other native tribe engage in true horrific crimes today. Remember during the 1990s when UN so called peace keepers went into West Africa to supposedly to stop genocide between two prominent tribes. The “peace keepers” committed crimes themselves.
We have heard about the terrible scourge of malaria in Africa. I knew two young entomologists we had been paid to coordinate handing out of bed netting in west African countries. Such netting reduced transmission dramatically. Yet a large percentage of the money which should have purchased more netting went to bribes. Bribes at the port of entry to off load the netting plus tariffs, bribes to high government officials to operate in country, bribes to bureaucrats whose job was supposedly to hand out netting and, what shocked my friends the most, bribes to the village/ tribe elders. The UN knew about such bribery but did nothing to stop it, though back in NY City that gave speeches as to how it should stop.
According to leftist mythology, the natives were kind and loving and never ever did anything to harm one another.
Until the evil white man showed up and taught the natives how to be evil.
Mark has created his own mythological left.
Kristi, I’ve heard people say this precise thing, that “Native Peoples” were perfect before the white man brought greed/capitalism/debauchery/etc to their lands. All of the people I have heard this are stereotypically white, rich, and employed in a non-productive field.
However, I will agree that this shouldn’t be generalized to the entire left.
Liberalism does have valid points and should not be discounted completely due to the actions of a few, or even of many, people.
People say a lot of foolish things, whether they are on the right or left. Neither can be generalized. I dislike it and do not agree when liberals make assumptions and generalizations about conservatives, too. I’ve learned in the past few years to admire many conservative values as I have come to understand them better, and there are aspects of liberalism that I disagree with. I’m very glad to see that (presumably) a conservative can say that liberalism has some valid points. It gives me hope that one day we can get past this terrible divide and come to see America as a whole. We don’t have to agree with each other all the time as long as we can converse and listen to each other. I believe that pretty much all ideologies – political, economic and religious – have aspects that are good, wise and valuable. It is up to the individual to find the bits one appreciates and take them as one’s own. It make it much easier to get along with those with whom one generally disagrees. Unless they don’t want to get along with me, but that’s their choice.
No! Agenda 21 isn’t real!
I better put back on my tinfoil hat.
incredible. I’m so sick of being vindicated after years of being called a conspiracy theorist. meanwhile, these animals get to continue murdering humans and no one fights back.
what are we waiting for? the comforts to completely dry up? for this to start happening in America, but with drones? good grief
This supposed “news item” is clearly an editorial — one with which I do not agree.
I wrote a “fictional future” story that included capital punishment for poachers on game reserves in Africa — in this case elephant poachers — that had them summarily tried by military court on the spot and the “officers” of the poaching unit hung from the nearest tree — the “grunts” (plain members of the poachers band) were sentenced to six months labor on the reserve then returned to their own countries.
No one would publish the story — but the solution proposed has been implemented in the meantime in many Africa countries, where the military is re-purposed to protect endangered wildlife on national preserves.
The problems of most, if not all, third world countries is lack of Rule of Law and decent benevolent “for-the-people” government. Benevolent government works both sides of the issues discussed in the news item of this post: Benevolent Government must enforce the laws evenly and fairly — and that includes no poaching of endangered animals on national reserves (especially, as in the case of many African countries) where these promote “eco-tourism” that brings in desperately needed foreign currency. Benevolent government also works to help the people find ways to make a living lawfully — organizing farming systems that benefit the people.
It is often hard to transition from a kleptocracy to a benevolent government — and this is where outside help comes in — foreign aid and international NGOs.
Rule of law would prevent armed thuggery, benevolent government would organize cocoa co-operatives for the poor farmers. Cocoa is the new GOLD of Africa — the #1 cash crop.
Kip, good comment. The problem is that not the UN, nor NGOs nor Western Democracies have even tried to move many African countries towards the rule of law. The UN has demonstrated they care nothing about the rule of law. NGOs probably cannot define what that means. Since Western Democracies are generally white majorities they are considered elitists. Many international environmental groups make it worse by pressuring and bribing local governments to protect wildlife using draconian methods. When people in countries like China are willing to pay what are for the locals astronomical prices for animal parts and some smugglers willing to bribe local officials to export such parts it is becomes nearly impossible to protect certain large species, like elephants and rhinos. Even here in the USA we are watching one entire political party and their base actually demand that we not abide by the rule of law.
Edwin ==> And there you have it ….. the UN is nearly entirely ineffective, foreign aid is stolen to enrich local despots, very few countries manage to pull themselves out of the muck to become decent democracies — it is a tough tough road.
Demand for animal parts for folk medicine in Southeast Asia and China is responsible for much of the slaughter of animals. China, after enough pressure, enacts laws but they are only effective when the penalties are so tough that the West finds them abhorrent.
Here in the US, I can’t tell which of the two major political parties you intended to indict — both qualify.
Edwin, how do you propose that the UN, etc. try to move countries toward the rule of law? And wouldn’t this be a matter of “global governance” if they did? These are sovereign nations, and they will have to figure out their problems on their own. That doesn’t mean the West can’t provide aid and advice, but interference has had very mixed results. One thing the UN (or the World Bank, or someone) could do is provide guidelines for ethical, sustainable and positive business practices for international corporations, and suggestions about the most effective ways of giving aid without it falling into the hands of corrupt leaders. (Maybe they already do this, I don’t know. Corporations aren’t exactly known for ethical practices even when they are aware of them.) I agree with others that far too much money has fallen into the wrong hands.
“Many international environmental groups make it worse by pressuring and bribing local governments to protect wildlife using draconian methods. ” Evidence? Or assumption?
Kip….
In the absence of both Rule of Law AND an economic value for wildlife that gives local, communal landholders an incentive to protect wildlife, what do we expect?
Contrast this with areas of Southern Africa in which wildlife can be privately owned and the owners make a profit from hunting. In RSA, livestock farms have reverted back to wildlife, fences removed, and overall wildlife numbers are close to twenty times what they were reduced to in the 70s.
White Rhinos were saved from extinction by private commercial breeders.
Yet we see this bambi-syndrome that results in an uproar over an old lion – whose natural fate would be starvation and death from hyena attack – being hunted for a price that PAYS the locals to tolerate lions and other wildlife, instead of killing them en-masse.
Peter ==> I shipped with many South Africans– back when it was a society ruled by the white minority. It has, so far, avoided the collapse that Rhodesia suffered, because, overall, it has maintained its underlying bureaucracy that has been able to maintain Rule of Law.
Rule of Law , and that old bugaboo, Capitalism, have kept South Africa going through the radical changes of the last couple of decades.
It is hoped that South Africa will deal with madmen like Julius Malema — if not, they will suffer the same fate as Rhodesia.
Foreign investment is sorely needed. Foreign aid has to be directed toward particular projects, not as loans to corrupt governments. It is VERY hard to transition to a “benevolent government” based on rule of law. The fundamental problems have to be addressed before it’s possible, such as education and adequate employment. Women’s rights are also a vital ingredient (this is not a feminist issue, it is an economic and political necessity for development).
The problems of intertribal struggles for power make it very hard to have what Westerners think of as “benevolent governments.” The lessons from Iraq and elsewhere show that bringing down a dictator can unleash tensions leading to far greater violence and loss of life. The Arab Spring sure wasn’t all it cracked up to be, either. Democracy is not always best for the populace as a whole. For example, a dominant tribe could gain power at the expense of other tribes.
I believe aid is best spent on education and health care, and in cases of famine due to crop failure, food. It is impossible to save everyone, and aid must be directed toward long-term goals or it is just a band-aid, so to speak. Welfare for nations is just as ineffective at fighting poverty as it is for poor Americans.
Few thoughtful people disagree that consensus climate science supports a Eurocentric/UN global gov putsch. However, it is more, though. First, in constitution, the climateers (and heads of supporting activist initiatives) are largely a шнутемаи’s organization (although of late, шнуте females appear to be making up a growing number of clisci graduates).
Unwittingly or not, they supply the rationale for policies of the шнуте еlite who would govern. This is a шнуте neocolonial organization by definition. Former colonies governments arent fooled, but in their small ponds they are the elites and they are being handsomely paid to do as they are told. In the case of the Euro/US poor, they were already directly under the elitist thumb and considerd Third Worlders, too (until Trump came along!).
How cynical for this ugly group to be bandying about charges of гасisм, and anti-diversity.
“Even the Guardian has noted the connection between offering large cash grants to tyrants in return for declaring regions off limits to humans, and vicious attacks against people living in the affected regions;”
Oh really? That’s what the Guardian said? Gee, I thought it said:
“What has happened in Botswana is happening all over the world, according to an increasingly vocal group of campaigners, academics and environmentalists. They claim that indigenous peoples are being appallingly treated and abused, all in the name of a conservation philosophy that carries a heavy human cost. In order to make room for wildlife, tourism and industry, governments are using conservation as a pretext to drive the world’s most endangered peoples away from the lands and animals they have lived with for generations.
….
“Lets see – large numbers of skilled but very poor farmers in Africa trying to make an honest living being backed into a corner, forced to pay large bribes, their families brutalised by armed thugs. Its pretty obvious what will happen next, and when it does, Western green policies will bear the ultimate blame.”
Yet again, a misleading oversimplification of the Guardian article. You are right that it suggests conservation groups are not providing adequate oversight to ensure governments don’t misuse the funds they give them, but where does it say that it is in return for excluding people? The article also says that many environmentalists agree with human rights groups that it is a major problem. There is no reason why conservation cannot co-exist with respect for communities on their traditional land. The problem is that governments are not obeying international law and written agreements. They also make money through tourism that relies on conservation, so even if it were not for grant from conservation groups there is no guarantee the brutality would stop.
I fail to see how Western green policies bear the ultimate blame for the actions of corrupt and brutal governments. And what will so obviously happen next?
Western Greens neo-colonialists consistently shut their eyes to the reality of Africa and African life.
Yes….. people ARE being excluded from land for “conservation” reasons.
Yes……. Green ideology IS denying Africans the right to make income from the sustainable use of wildlife. (AKA safari hunting and the legal sales of animal products)
No, tourism is NOT the answer for the majority of remote rural Africa. Tourists disproportionately flock to a small number of big-name destinations which have a combination of spectacular geography and high wildlife numbers in open country. You can declare al the “Parks” that you want, but you will get few tourists away from sealed roads and multi-star accommodation.
Unless wildlife pays its way, it is regarded as no more than meat and – in many cases – large, dangerous pests. Try telling a community that depends on livestock, that it should tolerate cattle-killing lions. Green groups create an uproar over the killing of an old lion, that would soon die a natural death of great suffering, anyway, but they do not do the obvious thing that would eliminate the necessity for Safari-Hunting…… which is to buy up the LIMITED number of hunting licences, themselves.
It’s Bambi-syndrome. Animals are seen as human, with human-style “rights”, while humans are disregarded.
There are a few assumptions here that I disagree with.
1. “Green ideology” is a fixed set of ideas that all environmentalists and conservationists agree on.
2. “Green ideology” created and maintains the problems of government corruption and brutality. (Reality: corruption and brutality are long-standing, complex problems that green groups are not able to solve, nor is it their aim to do so. I’d like to see evidence that any conservation groups make their aid dependent on removal of people from their native lands before I believe that.)
3. Greens don’t care about people (The focus of green groups is on conservation and/or minimizing environmental degradation, which is one factor contributing to poverty, according to multiple studies – see, for example http://www.aijssnet.com/journals/Vol_3_No_7_December_2014/16.pdf)
4. Tourism is not a significant source of income in rural areas. (That doesn’t mean that tourism is “the answer for the majority of remote rural Africa” – there is no single answer for the majority. Sealed roads = infrastructure and transportation = jobs. Multi-star resorts = construction and services = jobs. Associated sales from local crafts, restaurants, markets for agriculture = jobs. “The results show that rural households are relying heavily on the market economy, largely in the form of ecotourism, for support and highlight ecotourism employment’s important role in local socio-economic development in remote, rural areas. ” http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1467358414529435 …”Tourism
is increasingly recognized as a major source of
economic growth, particularly in poor countries.” http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@ed_dialogue/@sector/documents/publication/wcms_159257.pdf … see also https://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/2594.pdf)
6. “Green groups create an uproar over the killing of an old lion, that would soon die a natural death of great suffering, anyway, but they do not do the obvious thing that would eliminate the necessity for Safari-Hunting…… which is to buy up the LIMITED number of hunting licences, themselves.” (This would be the wrong thing to do if one is concerned about people, as it would damage the tourism industry. The fact that there are still hunting licences available in conservation areas suggests that green aid is not contingent on total bans on hunting. The key here is sustainability, and that means creation of reserves where anti-poaching laws can be enforced. That DOESN’T mean killing poachers is acceptable, but one has to take into account that poachers are well-armed criminals caught in the act, and it may not be easy to discern between those who are hunting for food and have no idea which species are threatened, and those who kill illegally for profit)
I am not against hunting. African ecosystems evolved with human hunters. The key is sustainability. Wiping out top predators like lions can have ripple effects, such as increased herbivore populations leading to crop loss. My point is that the issues are very complex. Suggesting that fighting for green ideals is necessarily anti-human is not warranted. Someone has to advocate for conservation or it won’t happen, and that is bad for humans, too.
However, I’m not suggesting that all green groups understand the complexities, either, and some may well be acting in a way that is harmful to native communities. It is just as wrong to make assumptions and generalizations that they are all doing what is good and right.
Bummer – while waiting for moderation, I can’t edit my comment. I wanted to say that some of these assumptions I discuss are about the general discussion, and don’t specifically address points that Peter W made.
When western governments pay the corrupt brutal government to remain corrupt and brutal, what would you expect the governments to be?
Kristi, I detect that you are a nice caring person as are a large percentage of those that believe they are doing the right thing. However, their is a lot of naivete blnding much of this group. The institutions and governments who run the show, however, are not blind which has implications for the state of THEIR morality. They know exactly what happens when you pay a despotic government cash to “protect”the natural environment. Tribalism is ugly and the “elites” tend to be of a dominant tribe that runs gov, runs the army, which by the way rarely fights invaders. They kill their own people 99% of the time.
They vleared people out of forests to plant vast tracts of Indonedia, Africa, etc. to make palm oil plantations fror fuelling diesel in Europe. They paid the gov to do the dirty work. This is the same type of thing
Dont be a self righteous useful idiot.
“Dont be a self righteous useful idiot.” Well, gee, I try not to be. It’s tough to be self-righteous when all I’m arguing is that people use reason and avoid seeing complex situations simplistically, through generalizations and assumptions. Is it self-righteous to say I don’t pretend to know enough to judge all the institutions and governments involved, or to issue blanket condemnations? Who is being self-righteous here?
I am not an idiot.
Over the last year or so I’ve talked to four Africans a week, often about their native countries. I talk to people from Ghana, Morocco, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Liberia, the Ivory Coast, Nigeria…many countries. I ask about violence, economy, government, religion and history. It has been enlightening, but I still only have a glimpse of the complexities, which vary from nation to nation.
Tribalism is certainly a problem in much of Africa, one problem among many. A sort of pseudo-tribalism is developing in America, in which the left and the right each believe the country should be run THEIR way, resulting in lack of predictability from one administration to the next. It is not good for the nation to only cater to one side or the other; our leaders should see America as a whole. When they vilify half the country, they only deepen the “tribal” divide. I believe conservatism and liberalism are both essential to the health of our society and economy, but the system of checks and balances is far less effective when people don’t recognize that there is value in understanding each others’ views even if they don’t agree. I don’t know – is that a self-righteous position?
I have ab9ut 10 coastal sequoia trees in my yard, does that count as a small foresst?
While I think the UN is an evil organization, and have no real knowledge of the programs of this post – I do know there are complex issues regarding using natural resources.
I grew up in Pennsylvania. The people trashed the place (some of my ancestors were involved) before they started protecting it.
For background reading, consider Pennsylvania’s “Big Cut.”
Overview: Pennsylvanians and the Environment
Chapter One: Penn’s Woods
Or for West Virginia:
The Virgin Forest Falls
Africa suffers from one of the greatest injustices perpetrated by ostensible moral humanitarian interventionists:
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Vaccination
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In 60 years of Western aid and development, we have yet to claim that we have brought one country to transition (economically or socially). Not one.
Vaccination however, has been successful beyond anyone’s wildest imagination.
So, where at the time of “We Are The World” we pretended to care about a problem that affected about 70mm , today the same problem persists but it affects 3 times the amount of people in the same region.
Wildlife and the environment too suffer disproportionally due to this one single interventionist policy.
Vaccination
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If you give away food to starving people you destroy the local farming community and at the same time are creating more people. Who will be starving if you stop feeding them.
The law of unintended consequences.
This is why we should be careful that our charity doesn’t have the effect of destroying people, killing the economy and creating dependency. Short term emergency aid but then build up the local response to transition the community back on their feet.
Vaccination has been successful? Where, in India? (where it is causing polio, but not “polio”)
Let’s not forget all the droves of people who were burned out of their villages in order to make way for biofuel crops, and the millions who were starved to death as a result of the policy.
It was done in cahoots with the UN & EU, as well as Fiends Of The Earth, Greenpiss, World Wildlife Fraud and Oxscam, etc. It is utterly appalling. The perpetrators ought to be rounded up.
Clinton foundation. REDD+.
Using charitable donations from well meaning people to take land away from indigenous people around the world.
The World Wildlife Fund and the Clinton Foundation at work. REDD+ and the worldwide land grab