Conservation's Dirty Secrets

nanoboy

nanoboy

Well-Known Member
I caught this documentary last night on SBS (an Australian TV channel) entitled "Conservation's Dirty Secrets". Thought provoking stuff indeed.

SBS: Documentary: Conservation's Dirty Secrets

You may be able to view the episode by clicking the link in the bottom right, or maybe it's just for viewers with an Aussie IP address. Nonetheless, you can probably find a link on YouTube or something.
 
I saw it too, and for the most part it was pretty interesting. The comments about Joy Adamson were not properly qualified, I thought.

:p

Hix
 
I agree with Hix that the section about Joy Adamson was not well done. The presenter was told that Joy Adamson had beaten people and then went on to say,"Joy Adamson beat the men." He should have said, "Some people have told me that they were beaten by Joy Adamson" or "There are claims that Joy Adamson beat some of her workers." As Joy Adamson died long ago and can't defend herself and the presenter couldn't prove that the men were telling the truth, it made me have some doubt about some of the other 'facts' that were stated in the programme.

I agreed with the statement that conservation groups tend to assume that potential benefactors don't know much about animals. Therefore, there is a tendency to mention popular endangered species, such as big cats, elephants, great apes etc, rather than try and interest people in critically endangered obscure species.

Several years ago, many European zoos took part in an annual fund-raising event to save animals. London Zoo volunteers took part in seven of these: one year was devoted to lion tamarins, one year to turtles and tortoises, one year to Madagascar and four years to tigers. Why is there an assumption that tigers are more important than all the other endangered animals all put together? A QI programme stated that tigers are the most popular zoo animals, so people expect to see them, even though the number of captive tigers is several times the 80 distantly related individuals needed to save the species from extinction.

Several years ago, I saw a programme about the WWF acquiring land in India for a tiger reserve. The local people were kicked off the reserve. Soon afterwards, some tigers were poached. WWF staff reproached the local people. "Why didn't you stop the poachers?" "Before you came, we could grow crops on the land. Now the land doesn't benefit us at all, so why should we help you?" Eventually, WWF allowed the local people to grow crops and the people watched out for poachers.

The Dispatches programme showed similar examples of local people being kicked off their land, so there was a conflict between people and animals. More enlightened conservationists try to encourage people to look after their wildlife. I know people who have helped develop schools in third world countries and this has led to people being interested in animals.

Unfortunately, wild habitats are continuing to be destroyed and this will mean that more large animals will have insufficient land to survive. Many of these animals are safe in captivity, but many smaller animals are not and could easily become extinct. Conservationists need to take more species into account and find ways to encourage people to care about interesting, little known animals, rather than continuing to push the idea that only 100 or so animals are in danger of extinction.
 
I think that the documentary reeked of the whole "man must have dominion over animals" mantra.

I don't think that it examined one of the root causes for man-animal conflicts, which is of course the exponential increase in the population of humans.

Maybe instead of donating to WWF and Conservation International, we should be donating to organisations that promote contraception.
 
Nanoboy is right in saying that increasing population is leading to increased conflicts between humans and animals. There seems to be an assumption that humans should be able to go where they like without having any risk from animals. Recent cases have involved a polar bear killing a young camper and a shark killing a honeymooner, as though the animals should have shown some 'respect,' no matter how hungry they were. Humans have taken over most of the planet and I think that many people are hypocritical about expecting that they can have 'risk-free' holidays in wild habitats, while native people have to share their lives with dangerous animals. There are still many people who believe that natural habiitats should be destroyed for homes and money, even though this can lead to mass starvation and poverty. It is better to preserve the habitats and redistribute wealth, as poorer people tend to have larger families.

People like David Attenborough support population control, as well as conservation. There are several problems concerned with promoting contraception, especially religious and human rights concerns. The 'one child per family' policy in China led to many girls being killed. I also suspect that many people would agree with the policy of taking money from the rich to give to the poor, as long as it wasn't their money. In the UK, I get less than the average income, but when I walked through the main streets of Antranarivo in Madagascar, I was probably the richest person there. There are millions of people living on under $1 a day, despite the high cost of basic goods. I doubt if many Zoo Chatters could put up with this level of poverty.

Hopefully, the people on Zoo Chat want to protect wild habitats, but conservationists need to work with local people and better their lives. I would like to see the UN having the power to depose rulers who live in luxury by destroying their lands and exploiting their poor, starving people. I can't see this happening, as many of our leaders are more bothered about increasing the wealth of the rich, rather than saving animals for posterity. This is one reason for zoos trying to save as many species as possible, rather than having thousands of individuals of a few popular species.
 
Dassie rat said:
I agree with Hix that the section about Joy Adamson was not well done. The presenter was told that Joy Adamson had beaten people and then went on to say,"Joy Adamson beat the men." He should have said, "Some people have told me that they were beaten by Joy Adamson" or "There are claims that Joy Adamson beat some of her workers." As Joy Adamson died long ago and can't defend herself and the presenter couldn't prove that the men were telling the truth, it made me have some doubt about some of the other 'facts' that were stated in the programme.
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That actually wasn't the point I was making.

I have no reason to disbelieve the claims - beating the black help was commonplace in colonial Africa. When blacks were employed they found themselves in a foreign culture and often stole things, and so they were disciplined by being beaten. I would not be at all surprised if Adamson beat the natives.

However - that was almost 50 years ago and, as I said, commonplace and accepted colonially. What I disliked about the documentary was it ran this short piece immediately after talking about conservation groups forcibly evicting natives from their land and burning their homes in order to secure a conservation reserve.

Comparing a big company evicting people today to Adamson doing something that was accepted 50 years ago without qualifying the context is - in my opinion - bad jounalism.

:p

Hix
 
Maybe I should have used the word "locals" instead of "blacks" as the latter has many other connotations, especially for the uninformed.

Yes, things were frequently taken, maybe not out of greed (stealing extra food to feed the family etc.), but for the colonialists it was still stealing.

Hix
 
Hix is correct in stating that some conservationists showed little sympathy towards native people and treated them little better than cheap slave labour. I have heard several people proposing killing many people in order to protect wild animals.

London Zoo has a statue called 'Defending the Cubs.' It shows an African man confronting a lioness, which is defending her cubs. The statue has been on site for about 100 years, but I wonder what its message is.

Should the man kill the lioness to save his life? If so, how does this square with conservation?
Should the lioness kill the man to save her cubs?
Would the statue have been built with a white man confronting the lioness and would our reactions be different?

I suspect that 100 years ago, the sympathies would rest with the lioness and her cubs and the life of the man would be forfeit. News editors suggest that hungry polar bears and sharks are not justified in attacking white British people, but attacks by wild animals on native people in the tropics have little news value, so perhaps we haven't moved on much.

I think the statue should be move to a museum or art gallery.
 
Hmmm... philosophical indeed.

I still think that we are divided into 2 camps:
1. the human deserved to die because it encroached on the animals' territory, and
2. let's round up a posse to kill this animal and all others like it that we find, because the life of a human is worth far more than that of a dumb animal

I haven't the foggiest idea of the ratio, but I am sure that it varies depending on location (even within the same country), religion, tribe etc.

The city dweller would sympathise with the elephant, and the African farmer might sympathise with his fellow farmer who lost all his crops due to an elephant rampage.

Of course, I have not said anything that we don't really know already, but being zoo/wildlife fanatics from developed countries, we sometimes forget that there is another side to the coin.

How do we co-exist? Well, I don't have an answer other than to stop immunisations in developing countries that have a high birth rate. Let nature take its course to limit population increase.
 
Many ethnic or tribal groups will support conservation if they find some economic benefit from it. This is why eco - tourism is so important. But this also requires investing in local education for coming generations on how to manage natural resources. Actually many large transnational companies and the world bank finace short minded ecological destruction in devolping nations ( for example dams and open air mining).
One of the best ways of lowering high population growth is empowering local native women. Encourage birth control, equal women´s rights by abolishing forced marriages and poligamy, give women the right to have smaller families, all these things help. Sadly, religion is not helping. Islam in the Middle East and Africa, and Roman Catholicism in Latin America are still promoting large families and the discrimination of women, and leaders of both faiths are against population control.
 
carlos77 said:
Many ethnic or tribal groups will support conservation if they find some economic benefit from it. This is why eco - tourism is so important. But this also requires investing in local education for coming generations on how to manage natural resources. Actually many large transnational companies and the world bank finace short minded ecological destruction in devolping nations ( for example dams and open air mining).
One of the best ways of lowering high population growth is empowering local native women. Encourage birth control, equal women´s rights by abolishing forced marriages and poligamy, give women the right to have smaller families, all these things help. Sadly, religion is not helping. Islam in the Middle East and Africa, and Roman Catholicism in Latin America are still promoting large families and the discrimination of women, and leaders of both faiths are against population control.
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So so true.
Maybe we are already past the tipping point of no return. Our grandkids may only see a tiger in a zoo, but will have to share the planet with 8 billion other humans.
 
When I was walking to the snow leopard exhibit at the Bronx Zoo in 1991, I looked at a couple of spinning blocks. They mentioned a case of a family needing 12 goats to provide enough food for the year. A snow leopard kills one of the goats, leading to a food shortage for the family. What should be done? Some would say that the family would have to do without and if some of them starved, so what? Another option is to kill the snow leopard, which is an endangered species and may have had a family to feed.

I think this shows the problems that we face. Many people in North America and Europe expect to have new homes and expanding towns, regardless of the effect on wildlife. Meanwhile, the same people expect people in other parts of the world to make sacrifices to save wildlife. I remember the complaints a few years ago about Indians wanting refrigerators to let their food last longer. "Of course, we shouldn't let India affect climate change in this way, but if you expect me to give up my fridge, you can think again."

Too many double standards, not enough logic.
 
Dassie rat said:
London Zoo has a statue called 'Defending the Cubs.' It shows an African man confronting a lioness, which is defending her cubs. The statue has been on site for about 100 years, but I wonder what its message is.
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I believe that this statue is actually called "Stealing the Cubs".
 
I do welcome a programme that looks at potential corruptions in the conservation circles. It's a rarley investiagted and doesn't seem to be regulated that thourghly internationally.

1. I would also comment on the "Joy Adamson section", that was done in an almost "skeleton in the closet" segment. It seemed outdated and although it doesn't justify what happened there are more pressing issues.

2. The local people vs. International conservationists debate has raged for year and the general recurring theme, is to put it bluntly "You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar". Forced evictions add fuel to the fire whereas, adding economic and finacial incenctives cools it, generally. It is also happening alot rarer than it used to!

3. The WWF is part of the conservation movement, not THE conservation movement. Criticize them if you feel the need, but don't criticize the movement.

4. The "Disneyification of Conservation" as they called flagship conservation focused mainly on the down side of it. Good flagship conservation does work, it protects that area not the species, and therefore all species in that area. If done correctly it can be highly effective. When the price of conservation and research aren't often revealled, these "money spinners" can be invaluable (The justifications of the A,B,C's?)

5. I personally felt that the argument of rare vs charasmatic was defunkt. Surley ecosystem enginners and keystone species are the main aim for conservation.

6. It did show the plasticity in conservation stratergies. Some iniatives work in some places for some people. There is no hard and fast answer. Thats the challenge.

p.s I still havw 10minutes left!
 
" The local people that conservationsists so often ignore" is a highly misleading statment. There is evidence that most conservation stratergies include local people not scrutinize them.

The corporate link was interesting?

In a perfect world there would be no corporate link, as corporate conservation seems to be a mutually exclusive statment.

Western sentimentalism doesn't drive the inivatives it drives the funding and if, and only if this is then spent responsibly and correctly on the species that really need it, then is it working.

Also the statment about conservation needing to be small and local was somewhat misleading. As a case study I would point out that there is little african villagers can do against poaching that is driven hy heavy finacial motive. They can't compete with the poachers risking it to make a lot of money, funded my the far east trade in body parts. I was told a story at Port Lympne about the black rhino project whereby the vets were getting paid about £20,000 a year. They were doing a programme of darting and tracking. Everytime the rhino's were tracked for a second time they had been poached, this was becuase the Chinese had offered them a higher annual wage based on returns in kg of rhino horn. When a £20,000 annual wage in africa can still be eclisped by poaching activites what can local tribes do?
 
The Dalai Lama decreed that his followers should not wear leopard skins again, in an attempt to stop poaching.

The communist government of China should do the same and decree that there is no scientific evidence of tiger penis, tiger bone wine, tiger balm, rhino horn, bear bile etc having any medicinal value. They should also discourage the consumption of sharkfin, bird's nest etc and/or fund research into the commercial rearing of these animals. Indeed, with 5,000 tigers in Chinese facilities they have a healthy breeding population to be commercially farmed. It beats starving them to death as they do now....

But, I digress. Long and short, I think that China with 1.5b people has the power to destroy or conserve the planet depending on their government policies.
 
Tim May said:
I believe that this statue is actually called "Stealing the Cubs".
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Thanks, Tim. You are right. Unfortunately, this makes it even worse. 100 years ago, zoos obtained many of their animals from the wild and this involved 'stealing' the babies from their parents. Even today, there is a trade in exotic animals for zoos and pet shops that involve killing the parents to obtain 'nice, cuddly animals'. I doubt if zoos even considered that many of their animals were 'stolen', so having a statue named 'Stealing the cubs' seems very bizarre.

You can see photos of the statue at The Bear Pit - Richard Whitby at Paradise Lost and Forget What Did: Forever Friends. John Finnemore is another person who wonders about the real purpose of the statue.



There is more information at Pastscape - Detailed Result: STEALING THE CUBS.
 
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