Is There Just One Thing To Do For Conservation?

[Zooplantman]

POLL: Is There Just One Thing To Do For Conservation?

Chris Packham: BBC Wildlife Presenter Says People Should Have Fewer Children And Get Tax Breaks | UK News | Sky News

What are your thoughts?

 

[Hix]

Agree 100%. There's far too many people in the world.



Hix

 

[karoocheetah]

If the government would like to pay me for NOT having kids I'm not going to refuse :O)

 

[JerseyLotte]

Lets be brutally honest.

The people in the world who are likely to actually listen to (or hear in the first place) a case for population control or limitation are firstly in a tiny minority and secondly, probably the kind of people we'd like to keep breeding!

 

[Zooplantman]

Lets be brutally honest.

The people in the world who are likely to actually listen to (or hear in the first place) a case for population control or limitation are firstly in a tiny minority and secondly, probably the kind of people we'd like to keep breeding!

In China it wasn't a request.

On a happier note:

The Daily Mash - BBC to make startling documentary about your unnecessary children

 

[peacock]

None of the above...

Conservationists should argue the case for sustainability and poverty reduction. population stabilisation will then largely take care of itself.

If the rich fraction of the world can embrace existing technology to switch to more sustainable lifestyles, the planet can then afford to elevate the remaining majority of the worlds humans to a higher standard of living/consumption. Since the wealthier humans get, the fewer children we produce - the population should then stabilise or indeed begin to reduce.

So the best thing you can do to for conservation?

Vote.

Vote for a party that supports a switch to sustainability.

Nothing infuriates me more than so-called conservationists who do not take even a fleeting interest in politics and or abstain from voting for some ridiculous belief that by refusing to engage in their own nations governance they are somehow taking the moral higher ground.

Get online. Read the parties policies - and vote. If you don't, you are shirking your #1 responsibility to the management of the planets resources, and in my opinion have absolutely no right to whinge or whine about anything that happens around you - be it a conservation issue or how late the bus' are running.

 

[Monty]

Vote for a party that supports a switch to sustainability.

Nothing infuriates me more than so-called conservationists who do not take even a fleeting interest in politics and or abstain from voting for some ridiculous belief that by refusing to engage in their own nations governance they are somehow taking the moral higher ground.

Get online. Read the parties policies - and vote. If you don't, you are shirking your #1 responsibility to the management of the planets resources, and in my opinion have absolutely no right to whinge or whine about anything that happens around you - be it a conservation issue or how late the bus' are running.

I don't think that many Australian political parties have a policy of sustainable population.
Here is the only one I could find.

S&F asserts that in order to limit the population of Australia to that which can be sustained within current environmental and resource limits, the Commonwealth Government should place an immediate moratorium on (all) new immigration applications. Such moratorium to remain in place until the Commonwealth has carried out an audit of Australia’s natural resources, in particular, water and energy, and until a referendum is held to set the optimum population levels.

Annual immigration levels shall be set so as to regulate maximum population to the mandated limit.

 

[Steve Robinson]

How do you go about "reducing" the world's existing population?

 

[Zooplantman]

How do you go about "reducing" the world's existing population?

Well, aside from what is currently going on in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Ivory Coast, etc..... negative population growth (as compared to 0 Population growth).

 

[Zooplantman]

I don't think that many Australian political parties have a policy of sustainable population.
Here is the only one I could find.

But that appears less to be really about sustaining population or resources than keeping them for "us."
Only immigrants are being limited, Aussies can breed like rabbits if they wish.

 

[Monty]

But that appears less to be really about sustaining population or resources than keeping them for "us."
Only immigrants are being limited, Aussies can breed like rabbits if they wish.

But like most well off countries we don't.
Without immigration our population would probably be falling.
Almost all governments want increasing population for economic stimulus to keep the economy growing. Eventually the population will have to stop increasing, but governments don't like to talk about that.

How do you go about "reducing" the world's existing population?

War or disease, in the short term.
In the long term wealth. The richer people are the less children they have.

 

[Zooplantman]

Eventually the population will have to stop increasing, but governments don't like to talk about that.

Neither do most zoos or aquariums. Often not even conservations organizations.
I was going to title this thread "The Conservation Strategy That Dare Not Speak Its Name."

Perhaps a related Poll/Thread would be "Will human population growth and its impact on wildlife influence your personal family planning?"
Theories are all well and good unless no one wants to take personal action.

 

[Hix]

I don't think that many Australian political parties have a policy of sustainable population.

Have a read of this:

http://www.population.org.au/speech by julia gillard 18 july.pdf

And then last September she created the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities. Tony Burke is the Minister.



Hix

 

[foz]

Conservationists should argue the case for sustainability and poverty reduction. population stabilisation will then largely take care of itself.

If the rich fraction of the world can embrace existing technology to switch to more sustainable lifestyles, the planet can then afford to elevate the remaining majority of the worlds humans to a higher standard of living/consumption. Since the wealthier humans get, the fewer children we produce - the population should then stabilise or indeed begin to reduce.
.....

Peacock makes a fantastic point. weshould be focuson sustainable development so that people are in a better developed position and population will follow suit. I dont think that the world is over populated (yet) but lifestyles need to change.

 

[Zooplantman]

Peacock makes a fantastic point. weshould be focuson sustainable development so that people are in a better developed position and population will follow suit. I dont think that the world is over populated (yet) but lifestyles need to change.

That may be true for energy use and even land development for housing, but potable water and food production are not so clear cut.
And I suspect that wildlife and plant communities would disagree as well with this assumption that human population is not yet excessive.

Smaller families via greater wealth (forgetting the current gross inequalities in wealth even within developed nations) takes generations to slow population growth. Do wildlife and wild places have that much time?

 

[foz]

That may be true for energy use and even land development for housing, but potable water and food production are not so clear cut.
And I suspect that wildlife and plant communities would disagree as well with this assumption that human population is not yet excessive.

Smaller families via greater wealth (forgetting the current gross inequalities in wealth even within developed nations) takes generations to slow population growth. Do wildlife and wild places have that much time?

You offer some very good thoughts. Whole issue is up for debate and it is imperitive that it should be debated.

with the advent of global warming things will only get worse...dum dum dum ...

...on a more positive note we can always try and do something about it

 

[peacock]

I don't think that many Australian political parties have a policy of sustainable population.
Here is the only one I could find.

i was talking about policies on sustainable management of resources - such as energy, forestry, waste managment etc. not population.

How do you go about "reducing" the world's existing population?

like i said steve, you elevate the standard of living. but you can't do that until you have made high standards of living far, far more sustainable.

That may be true for energy use and even land development for housing, but potable water and food production are not so clear cut.
And I suspect that wildlife and plant communities would disagree as well with this assumption that human population is not yet excessive.

actually, like energy - our methods of food production is archaic and unsustainable. i have read quite a few articles in science journals that claim the technology exists to feed the entire human population and then some if people switch to smarter farming practices. without going into it in depth - i see a parallels between an energy revolution and farming one. both industries have existing technologies that are not being embraced.

Smaller families via greater wealth (forgetting the current gross inequalities in wealth even within developed nations) takes generations to slow population growth. Do wildlife and wild places have that much time?

no. sadly, many of them don't. there is no saving the majority of whats left of Southeast Asia's forests. even with a global push for change, there is just enough time or forest to turn around the tide of destruction that is happening in places like borneo, sumatra and indochina.

my only hope is that enough small protected forest pockets survive, be them glorified zoos and in need on intensive management, that in 300 years when we have solved many of these problems, that that wild biodiversity is still there alive and "banked" to reclaim some of its former range.

but i sincerely think we will destroy virtually the whole lot before we try and turn back the clock.

 

[jay]

i
but i sincerely think we will destroy virtually the whole lot before we try and turn back the clock.

If that is the case is there any point in trying to change things?

 

[johnstoni]

I once saw a documentary where a blonde, well-fed, Dutch conservationist went around Borneo rescuing orang utans. The crew followed him to a hut on stilts over a river, where they had been told a baby orang was being kept as a pet. The lady living in the hut with her husband had recently lost her own baby. A translator sweet-talked the woman into giving up the orang, and after it was removed from her, the crew left, with the distraught, poor, brown-skinned Indonesian lady howling and crying as the boat left their hut.

Until conservationists see the rights and lives of people as of equal importance to that of wildlife and ecosystems, not as an obstacle that needs to be overcome through education or cheap buyout, but as equals, then I don't see how in situ work in areas where people live can be sustainable.

Population reduction is a red herring. It fits with the sinister, eugenicist, view of the world and I would urge people to read into the history and politics of the population reduction movement.

 

[peacock]

If that is the case is there any point in trying to change things?

Absolutely! But i see it as a scramble jay, a scramble for as much as you can possibly save. we may lose a lot, most in fact, but that doesn't mean that those few "wins" we might have wont be worth all the effort.

Thats why in a way I have to respect the consolidation approach to conservation. To give a microscopic example (with no desire to change the greater topic), I respect the IRF's decision not to support the Northern White Rhino project. If the NWR's can secure funding that would otherwise not be allocated to conservation, then terrific, and I sincerely wish them all the best (and i'm sure the IRF does too) - but given that the IRF are there to help secure the future of all rhino taxa, that the NWR is not a full species, that the taxon is already functionally extinct in pure form and that there are far more threatened full species - I completely understand their decision to "write off" the northern whites.