🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <332C97DC.2333@easynet.co.uk>, sdef! <savage@easynet.co.uk> wrote:

>The logic of 'endangered species' is a sacred cow among
>environmentalists. So much so that most fail to realise that it fits
>well the agenda of the corporate beast that is destroying our home. With
>the obsession with inventories of species we blind ourselves to the true
>scale of the destruction that is going on to provide the rich world with
>its excessive consumption.

I'd like you to try and prove your assertion that *most* fail to realize
that preservation of endangered species is just a minor part of the
conservation problem.

Endangered species get so much press attention in the US in part because
protection of a few of them has caused economic dislocation of certain
segments of industry.  Most endangered species protection efforts involve
species which most folks have never heard of.

And most conservation organizations, at least here in the US, concentrate
largely on the protection of habitat.  Pressing for better management
of grazing and timber harvesting on federal lands intersects with the
protection of endangered species to some degree, but not by much.  This
is one reason why, for instance, so much effort is put into ensuring
that sufficient tracts of our Alaskan lands - much less developed than
in the rest of the country - is protected.  The notion is to avoid
having Alaskan wildlife become endangered as so many populations in the
lower 48 have.

>It will be quite possible to wipe out 90% of life on earth whilst still
>satisfying the expert environmentalists that their inventories are not
>being depleted.

Not at all true.  I have no idea where you get this notion from, but
it's false.

Perhaps the priority given endangered species confuses you.  When I'm
sick, I treat my illness, but this doesn't mean I lose sight of the
fact that my lifespan will most likely be largely determined by my
overall lifestyle, not the cold I currently have (I really do have
one, too!)

Likewise, conservationists realize that losing a species is forever,
as the saying goes.  Often preventing that loss required immediate
intervention.  That doesn't mean that conservationists lose sight
of the larger picture while doing so, though.

>This cold, callous language of the economists has
>removed any sense of worth from life on earth as anything other than a
>commodity. It's fine to kill millions of plants and animals to build a
>road (for example) so people can scurry frantically from slave camp a to
>slave camp b more efficiently, so long as they are not members of
>species the experts have noticed are endangered.

You aren't really familiar with conservation laws in the US, are you?

Perhaps what you say is true elsewhere, but not here.  Now, getting
those laws enforced is another issue altogether, but the fact that
conservationists often lose these battles doesn't mean they're not
fought, and certainly doesn't mean they're forgotten!

-- 

- Don Baccus, Portland OR <dhogaza@pacifier.com>
  Nature photos, on-line guides, at (NEW) http://donb.photo.net