propaganda | ConservationBytes.com

Neo-colonialist attitudes ignoring poachernomics will ensure more extinctions

14 01 2022

No matter most people’s best intentions, poaching of species in Sub-Saharan Africa for horn and ivory continues unabated. Despite decades of policies, restrictions, interventions, protections, and incentives, many species of elephant and rhino are still hurtling toward extinction primarily because of poaching.

Clearly, we’re doing something heinously wrong.

Collectively, we have to take a long, hard look in the conservation mirror and ask ourselves some difficult questions. Why haven’t we been able to put any real dent in the illegal trade of poached elephant ivory and rhino horn? How many millions (billions?) of dollars have we spent seemingly to little avail? Why haven’t trade bans and intensive security measures done the trick?

The reasons are many, but they boil down to two main culprits:

neo-colonialist sentiments driven by the best intentions of mainly overseas NGOs have inadvertently created the ideal conditions for the poaching economy — what we term poachernomics — to thrive by ensuring the continued restriction of legal supply of wildlife products; and
shutting off conservation areas to local people and directing the bulk of ecotourism profits away from source communities have maintained steady poaching incentives in the absence of other non-destructive livelihoods.

In our new paper — Dismantling the poachernomics of the illegal wildlife trade (led by Enrico Di Minin of the Universities of Helsinki and KwaZulu-Natal, and co-authored by Michael ‘t Sas-Rolfes of the University of Oxford, Jeanetta Selier of the South African National Biodiversity Institute, Maxi Louis of the Namibian Association of Community-Based Natural Resources Management Support Organizations, and me) — published quietly in late 2021, we describe how poachernomics works, and why our efforts to incapacitate it have been so ineffectual.

First, what is poachernomics?

Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 3 Comments »
Tags: CITES, crime syndicates, Economics, elephant, elephant ivory, illegal wildlife trade, ivory, narcotics, organised crime, poachernomics, poachers, poaching, rhino, rhino horn, rhinoceros
Categories : Africa, Asia, China, conservation, conservation biology, corruption, culture gap, development, economics, environmental economics, environmental policy, exploitation, extinction, extinction vortex, governance, harvest, human-wildlife conflict, mammal, management, poaching, poverty, preservationist, propaganda, protected area, reserve, sustainability, threatened species, tourism

Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss LXVI

29 05 2021

Here is the third set of biodiversity cartoons for 2021. See full stock of previous ‘Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss’ compendia here.

Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: climate change, consumption, denialism, development, environmental laws, environmental politics, fracking, Global warming, human population, waste
Categories : cartoon, climate change, conservation, corruption, deforestation, development, economics, environmental policy, habitat loss, human overpopulation, logging, poverty, propaganda, sustainability, toxification

Citizens ask the experts in climate-change communication

7 02 2021

In the second of two consecutive interviews with climate-change experts (see the first one here), readers of the Spanish magazine Quercus have a chat with Katharine Hayhoe. Her words blend hope with the most putrid reality of economics and politics. May this interview inspire some environment-friendly changes in our daily routines and in how we see the beautiful life that surrounds us.

PhD in climate science, professor in political science and co-director of the Climate Centre at Texas Tech University (USA), Katharine Hayhoe works on climate projections and mitigation (1-3). Her prominent profile as communicator (4-6) made her one of the 100^th most influential people in the world. To the left, Katharine has “A conversation on climate change” with citizens at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Museum (Austin). Photo credits: Artie Limmer (portrait) & Jay Godwin (talk).

Interview done 20 October 2020

Below we italicise each question and the name of the person asking the question and cite a range of publications we deem relevant per question. For expanding on Katharyne Hayhoe’s views on climate change, see a sample of her public talks here and here, interviews here and here, and newspaper articles here and here. We love one of the titles of her newspaper articles “A thermometer is not liberal or conservative”. A spanish version of this article and interview has been published in the February 2021 issue of the magazine Quercus.

Question 1 of 4: There are extraordinarily influential people on a global scale who have a utilitarian perspective of nature, and think that climate change (be it of anthropogenic origin or not) entails advantages and opportunities to Western economies, and that we will be able to adapt whether changes are reversible or irreversible. Can we engage or use those influential people in any possible way to abate climate change? (7, 8) / Iñaki García Pascual (Environmental geologist)

Hayhoe:

Climate change has some localised, short-term, specific benefits (9). One example is increased access to oil and gas resources in a melting Arctic (10). This temporarily profits oil and gas industries, provides some financial benefit to local communities in Greenland and Alaska short-term, and harms both them and everyone else in the long term. A book called Windfall by Mackenzie Funk describes who is “profiteering” from climate change, and how.
Overall, however, climate change already harms the majority of people today. The poor, the vulnerable, and the marginalized are affected first and foremost. Since the 1960s, for example, climate change has increased the gap between the richest and poorest countries in the world by as much as 25 per cent. In 2019, UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, warned that climate change “threatens to undo the last 50 years” of development, global health and poverty reduction.” (11)
And while the rich may be able to temporarily “buy their way out of rising heat and hunger”, as Alston put it, the truth is that we all live on this planet, no matter how wealthy and influential we are. The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat and all the resources we use come from our shared home.
Climate change threatens the ability of our planet to support human civilisation as we know it. It is a threat multiplier, attacking our health, our economy, our resources and even our security. As climate change intensifies and economic markets crumble and refugee crises surge, even those who may temporarily benefit from a warmer world will be negatively impacted by these changes long-term.
That’s why it makes so much sense to take practical steps to limit carbon pollution now. Many of these actions also provide us with short-term benefits that can be quantified in economic terms: like energy savings through efficiency, cheaper electricity from renewables, more jobs, better public transportation, and even faster cars (like Tesla). Climate action also provides less tangible but arguably even more important benefits: cleaner air and water, better health, poverty reduction, and a host of other co-benefits that substantively move us towards meeting key UN Sustainable Development Goals.
To care about climate change, we don’t have to be a certain type of person or live in a certain place or vote a certain way: all we have to be is a human living on this planet, and we’re all that.

Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: climate change, climate disruption, Communication, denialism, ecological footprint, Global warming, misdirection, misinformation
Categories : anthropocene, climate change, climate shift, corruption, development, economics, education, environmental economics, environmental policy, propaganda, science communication, sustainability

Worried about Earth’s future? Well, the outlook is worse than even scientists can grasp

14 01 2021

Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Flinders University; Daniel T. Blumstein, University of California, Los Angeles, and Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University

Anyone with even a passing interest in the global environment knows all is not well. But just how bad is the situation? Our new paper shows the outlook for life on Earth is more dire than is generally understood.

The research published today reviews more than 150 studies to produce a stark summary of the state of the natural world. We outline the likely future trends in biodiversity decline, mass extinction, climate disruption and planetary toxification. We clarify the gravity of the human predicament and provide a timely snapshot of the crises that must be addressed now.

The problems, all tied to human consumption and population growth, will almost certainly worsen over coming decades. The damage will be felt for centuries and threatens the survival of all species, including our own.

Our paper was authored by 17 leading scientists, including those from Flinders University, Stanford University and the University of California, Los Angeles. Our message might not be popular, and indeed is frightening. But scientists must be candid and accurate if humanity is to understand the enormity of the challenges we face.

Girl in breathing mask attached ot plant in container

Getting to grips with the problem

First, we reviewed the extent to which experts grasp the scale of the threats to the biosphere and its lifeforms, including humanity. Alarmingly, the research shows future environmental conditions will be far more dangerous than experts currently believe. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: agriculture, alien species, Anthropocene, biodiversity, biowealth, bushmeat, carbon, climate change, climate shift, conservation, coral reefs, decline, deforestation, development, disease, drought, Economics, Ecosystem, ecosystem function, ecosystem services, Education, Endarkenment, environmental economics, environmental policy, Environmental science, exploitation, extinction, extremism, fire, food, function, governance, habitat loss, harvest, health, human overpopulation, impact, invasive species, ocean, planning, pollination, poverty, propaganda, science, threatened species, toxification
Categories : Africa, agriculture, alien species, anthropocene, biodiversity, biowealth, carbon, climate change, climate shift, conservation, conservation biology, corruption, decline, deforestation, development, disease, drought, economics, ecosystem services, education, Endarkenment, environmental economics, environmental policy, environmental science, extinction, extinction debt, extremism, fire, Flinders University, governance, habitat loss, harvest, health, human overpopulation, investment, livestock, logging, management, ocean, planning, propaganda, restoration, science, seagrass, sustainability, synergies, threatened species, toxification, vegetation

Time for a ‘cold shower’ about our ability to avoid a ghastly future

13 01 2021

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,’ said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
Frodo Baggins and Gandalf, The Fellowship of the Ring

Today, 16 high-profile scientists and I published what I describe as a ‘cold shower’ about society’s capacity to avoid a ghastly future of warfare, disease, inequality, persecution, extinction, and suffering.

And it goes way beyond just the plight of biodiversity.

No one who knows me well would mistake me for an optimist, try as I might to use my colleagues’ and my research for good. Instead, I like to describe myself as a ‘realist’. However, this latest paper has made even my gloomier past outputs look downright hopeful.

And before being accused of sensationalism, let me make one thing abundantly clear — I sincerely hope that what we describe in this paper does not come to pass. Not even I am that masochistic.

I am also supportive of every attempt to make the world a better place, to sing about our successes, regroup effectively from our failures, and maintain hope in spite of evidence to the contrary.

But failing to acknowledge the magnitude and the gravity of the problems facing us is not just naïve, it is positively dangerous and potentially fatal.

It is this reason alone that prompted us to write our new paper “Underestimating the challenges of
avoiding a ghastly future” just published in the new journal, Frontiers in Conservation Science.

Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 7 Comments »
Tags: carrying capacity, climate change, climate disruption, climate refugees, consumption, density feedback, extinction, governance, human population, over-consumption, political will, populism, sustainability
Categories : Africa, agriculture, alien species, anthropocene, biodiversity, biowealth, bushmeat, carbon, climate change, climate shift, conservation, coral reefs, decline, deforestation, development, disease, drought, economics, ecosystem, ecosystem function, ecosystem services, education, Endarkenment, environmental economics, environmental policy, environmental science, exploitation, extinction, extremism, fire, food, function, governance, habitat loss, harvest, health, human overpopulation, impact, invasive species, ocean, planning, pollination, poverty, propaganda, science, threatened species, toxification

Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss LII

2 01 2019

The first set of six biodiversity cartoons for 2019 to usher in the New Year. See full stock of previous ‘Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss’ compendia here.

—

Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: biodiversity, climate change, Coal, conservation, deforestation, ecosystem services, energy, environment, extinction, Global warming, logging, offsets, pollution, Renewable energy, rubbish, science, sustainability
Categories : biowealth, cartoon, conservation, environmental policy, logging, propaganda

With a Rebel Yell, Scientists Cry ‘No, no, more!’

29 11 2018

Adrenaline makes experiences hyper-real. Everything seems to move in slow motion, apart from my heart, which is so loud that I am sure people can hear it even over the traffic.

It’s 11:03 on a sunny November morning in central London. As the green man starts to shine, I walk into the middle of the road and sit down. On either side of me, people do the same. There can only be about 50 of us sitting on this pedestrian crossing, and I murmur ‘are we enough?’

‘Look behind you,’ says a new friend.

I turn. Blackfriar’s Bridge, usually covered in cars and buses, is filling with people. Citizens walking into the road and staying there, unfurling colourful flags with hourglass symbols on them. The police film us, standing close, but make no move to arrest anyone. Later, we discover that at least some of them encourage our disobedience.

Messages start coming in — 6,000 people are here, and we’ve blocked five bridges in central London with Extinction Rebellion, protesting for action to stop climate change and species extinctions. I’m a scientist participating in my first ever civil disobedience, and for me, this changes everything.

Left to right: protestors include kids, company directors, and extinct species.

What makes a Cambridge academic — and thousands of other people — decide that sitting in a road is their best chance of being heard? In short, nothing else has got us the emissions cuts we need. The declaration that global warming is real and that greenhouse-gas emissions need to be cut came in 1988, when I was a year old. Since then, scientists have continued to be honest brokers, monitoring greenhouse gases, running models, presenting the facts to governments and to the people. And emissions have continued to climb. The 2018 IPCC report that shocked many of us into action told us we have 12 years to almost halve emissions, or face conditions incompatible with civilisation. How did we end up here? Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 11 Comments »
Tags: biodiversity, civil disobedience, climate change, environment, extinction, Global warming, honesty broker, politics, protest, rise up
Categories : climate change, climate shift, conservation, extinction, propaganda

Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss L

3 08 2018

The fifth set of six biodiversity cartoons for 2018. See full stock of previous ‘Cartoon guide to biodiversity loss’ compendia here.

—

Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : Leave a Comment »
Tags: biodiversity, climate change, Coal, conservation, deforestation, ecosystem services, energy, environment, Global warming, logging, pollution, Renewable energy, rubbish, science, sustainability
Categories : biowealth, cartoon, conservation, environmental policy, logging, propaganda

Future of conservation

7 04 2017

Last year I posted about a paper that attempted to gauge the opinions of modern-day conservationists about the perceived role of conservation biology today and in the near future.

My main point was that it’s not a dichotomy (or trichotomy, etc.), and that the complexity of the modern discipline means that many different approaches and philosophies must be implemented.

Following that article, Chris Sandbrook of the United Nations World Conservation Monitoring Centre and the University of Cambridge just contacted me to promote a new survey that allows a broader section of the conservation community to contribute views.

The new survey will provide data to establish whether there are any factors (such as nationality, educational background, or experience of different ecosystems) that explain some of the variation in the views held by conservationists. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: biology, Critical Social Science, debate, Market Biocentricism, New Conservation, social science, survey, Traditional Conservation, United Nations
Categories : anthropocene, biodiversity, biowealth, conservation, conservation biology, development, ecosystem function, ecosystem services, environmental economics, environmental policy, environmental science, extinction, governance, investment, jobs, management, monitoring, planning, poverty, preservationist, prioritisation, propaganda, protected area, recovery, research, science, sustainability, threatened species

Potential conservation nightmare unfolding in South Africa

31 10 2016

Like most local tragedies, it seems to take some time before the news really grabs the overseas audience by the proverbial goolies. That said, I’m gobsmacked that the education tragedy unfolding in South Africa since late 2015 is only now starting to be appreciated by the rest of the academic world.

You might have seen the recent Nature post on the issue, and I do invite you to read that if all this comes as news to you. I suppose I had the ‘advantage’ of getting to know a little bit more about what is happening after talking to many South African academics in the Kruger in September. In a word, the situation is dire.

We’re probably witnessing a second Zimbabwe in action, with the near-complete meltdown of science capacity in South Africa as a now very real possibility. Whatever your take on the causes, justification, politics, racism, or other motivation underlying it all, the world’s conservation biologists should be very, very worried indeed.

Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 4 Comments »
Tags: #feesmustfall, Africa, biodiversity, Education, megafauna, racism, science, South Africa, universities
Categories : Africa, anthropocene, biodiversity, biowealth, conservation, conservation biology, corruption, environmental policy, environmental science, extinction, governance, human overpopulation, management, poaching, poverty, propaganda, research, science

What’s in a name? The dingo’s sorry saga

30 01 2015

The more I delve into the science of predator management, the more I realise that the science itself takes a distant back seat to the politics. It would be naïve to think that the management of dingoes in Australia is any more politically charged than elsewhere, but once you start scratching beneath the surface, you quickly realise that there’s something rotten in Dubbo.

My latest contribution to this saga is a co-authored paper led by Dale Nimmo of Deakin University (along with Simon Watson of La Trobe and Dave Forsyth of Arthur Rylah) that came out just the other day. It was a response to a rather dismissive paper by Matt Hayward and Nicky Marlow claiming that all the accumulated evidence demonstrating that dingoes benefit native biodiversity was somehow incorrect.

Their two arguments were that: (1) dingoes don’t eradicate the main culprits of biodiversity decline in Australia (cats & foxes), so they cannot benefit native species; (2) proxy indices of relative dingo abundance are flawed and not related to actual abundance, so all the previous experiments and surveys are wrong.

Some strong accusations, for sure. Unfortunately, they hold no water at all. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 17 Comments »
Tags: Australia, CRC, dingo, dingo fence, dingoes, dog fence, pest management, poison, predator management, predators, wild dogs, xenophobia
Categories : alien species, Australia, cat, cattle, conservation, dingo, ecosystem function, environmental policy, environmental science, fox, invasive species, kangaroo, livestock, mammal, management, modelling, predator, propaganda, research, trophic cascades

It’s not all about cats

20 10 2014

If you follow any of the environment news in Australia, you will most certainly have seen a lot about feral cats in the last few weeks. I’ve come across dozens of articles in the last week alone talking about the horrendous toll feral cats have had on Australian wildlife since European arrival. In principle, this is a good thing because finally Australians are groggily waking to the fact that our house moggies and their descendants have royally buggered our biodiversity. As a result, we have the highest mammal extinction rate of any country.

But I argue that the newfound enthusiasm for killing anything feline is being peddled mainly as a distraction from bigger environmental issues and to camouflage the complete incompetence of the current government and their all-out war on the environment.

Call me cynical, but when I read headlines like “Australia aims to end extinction of native wildlife by 2020” and Environment Minister Hunt’s recent speech that he has “… set a goal of ending the loss of mammal species by 2020“, I get more than just a little sick to the stomach.

What a preposterous load of shite. Moreover, what a blatant wool-pulling-over-the-eyes public stunt. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 6 Comments »
Tags: Australia, cats, dingoes, feral animals, feral species, foxes, invasive species, mesopredator release, poison, wildlife management
Categories : alien species, anthropocene, Australia, biodiversity, cat, conservation, conservation biology, decline, deforestation, ecosystem, ecosystem function, environmental policy, environmental science, extinction, extinction debt, fox, fragmentation, habitat loss, harvest, invasive species, logging, mammal, management, propaganda, research

Corporate wolves posing as environmental sheep

10 06 2014

A slicing article by Bill Laurance (incidentally, he will be speaking at The University of Adelaide on 26 June). Originally published in The Ecologist.

—

What do the Australian Environment Foundation, the Renewable Energy Foundation and the Global Warming Policy Foundation have in common? They are all fiercely anti-environment – and we must beware their ‘eco-doublespeak’.

George Orwell would have appreciated the Australian Environment Foundation. That’s because Orwell was a master of doublespeak – where words take on purposely obscure or opposite meanings.

Despite its name, the Australian Environment Foundation is not pro-environment. In fact, I consider it anti-environment, at least by the prevailing definition of that term.

For instance, the AEF opposes wind farms, many mainstream efforts to combat climate change, and what it labels “green thuggery” – such as initiatives to make cattle ranching more environmentally benign via the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef.

World Heritage Sites – who needs them?

In Australia, the AEF likes the Tony Abbott government’s efforts to remove World Heritage listing for 74,000 hectares of native forests in the Tasmania Wilderness World Heritage Area, to promote industrial logging.

In fact, the AEF likes it so much that it’s written to all of the members of the 21-nation World Heritage Committee, urging them to back the government’s bid when they consider it in Doha, Qatar this month.

If the government is successful, it will only be the second time in history that a natural World Heritage site has been de-listed.

A recent director of the AEF is Alan Oxley, an industrial lobbyist and former Australian trade ambassador who’s spearheaded opposition to numerous environmental initiatives around the world. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: Alan Oxley, climate change, corporate lies, Environmentalism, Merchants of Doubt, politics, William Laurance
Categories : environmental policy, propaganda

Medieval Canada threatens global biodiversity

25 11 2013

Artists, poets and musicians make us feel, viscerally, how people destroy what they do not understand. Logic and observation led E. O. Wilson to conclude: ‘If people don’t know, they don’t care. If they don’t care, they don’t act.’

Whether you feel it in one of Drew Dillinger’s poems¹ or visualise it from the sinuous beauty of mathematical equations, the song remains the same. Scientists are critical to the present and future of the biosphere and humanity, but if — and only if — we are free to communicate our findings to the voting public.

Galileo did not have that right. Scientists in totalitarian regimes of today still lack it. And now, incredibly, some of Canada’s top scientists have lost that right^2,3,4.

That is not the Canada I immigrated into. Rewind the tape to 1983. I am a young immigrant, ecstatic that my family has gained entry into the country. We all have mixed feelings; we love our home country of Mexico and are sad to leave it, yet we look forward to being part of Canada’s open-minded and science-loving spirit. The tape runs forward and not all turns out to be as advertised. Still, for the next 23 years Canada remains a damn good place, ruled by governments that, imperfect as they might have been, were not obsessed with burying science.

Fast forward the tape to 2006. Stephen Harper’s newly elected and still ruling Conservative Government hits the ground pounding punches in all directions. Almost immediately, the Conservatives begin to implement one of their many Machiavellian tactics that aim to turn Canada into a petro-state^6,7: downgrade science as irrelevant to evidence-based decision making. Ever since, Canadian federal scientists have seen their programs slashed or buried. Those who manage to hang on to their jobs are strictly forbidden to speak about their findings to the media or the public^8,9,10,11.

Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 6 Comments »
Tags: Canada, climate change, Conservative, fossil fuels, Keystone, Muzzling, oil, Ottawa, pipeline, scientists, Stephen Harper, tar sands
Categories : anthropocene, biodiversity, Canada, carbon, climate change, conservation, corruption, environmental policy, environmental science, fish, fisheries, pollution, propaganda, threatened species

The climate of climate change

4 09 2012

The primary scientific literature on climate change spawns hundreds of debates on an array of topics. When the technical debate among experts, and the obvious uncertainties, are taken up by the media, they are typically treated as any other topic, which ends up in some people not trusting science and others exploiting the ‘debate’ for their own interests.

Many media debates consist of one moderator and several speakers with two confronting views. When the topic under discussion affects our daily life (e.g., unemployment), the average spectator will often agree with one of the views. When the topic affects people (apparently) in a general fashion (e.g., climate change), the spectator might distrust or simply ignore both views. Thus, the media shapes public opinion such that people’s perception of the news becomes black, white, “I don’t believe it” or “it doesn’t exist”. Public debates on climate change are like a ‘contact sport’ (1), a team has to win in a contest where both parties alternate attack and defence. The participation of speakers without specialised expertise on climate change, especially if they represent short-term political and economic interests, instigates public mistrust and inhibition (2). This situation erodes the informative role that science and scientists must play in the creation of novel environmental policies aiming to improve the present and future wellbeing of our society (3, a Science paper unsurprisingly challenged by US administration’ bastion Fred Singer: 4). Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 3 Comments »
Tags: acidification, Climate, climate change, climate disruption, coccolithophores, debate, ocean acidification, science
Categories : carbon, climate change, conservation, fisheries, marine, propaganda

Worlds collide: greenwashed development to kill biodiversity

15 03 2012

Another development fiasco that, if it goes ahead, will devastate a Biodiversity Hotspot and ultimately, reduce the livelihood prospects of millions of West Africans.

In yet another move to expose and shame the greedy developers behind another massive (and superlatively greenwashed) oil palm development in the tropics (see our previous Open Letter), Bill Laurance and Josh Linder have organised another Open Letter from some of the world’s top conservation scientists (again, I count myself fortunate to be included in that group) denouncing the project. The press release is below, followed by the letter itself:

—

Eleven of the world’s top scientists have produced an open letter to the public urging the Cameroon government to stop a giant oil palm plantation that they say will threaten some of Africa’s most important protected areas.

The project, sponsored by a subsidiary of U.S. agribusiness giant Herakles Farms in collaboration with a U.S. nonprofit organization, All for Africa, would span 70,000 hectares (154,000 acres), an area nearly the size of New York City.

“It’s simply frightening in scope,” said Thomas Struhsaker, a leading expert on African primates and rainforest ecology at Duke University in North Carolina, USA, who has worked in the region for nearly a half-century.

The project would destroy a critical forested area that currently links five national parks or protected areas in Cameroon, say the scientists.

“These forests are vital for wildlife, including the African elephant, chimpanzee and drill, all threatened or endangered species,” said anthropologist Joshua Linder of James Madison University in Virginia, USA, who has helped coordinate the protest. “These animals rely on the forests that would be destroyed to survive and move among the parks.”

“This area is a biodiversity hotspot, some of the world’s most biologically important real estate,” said tropical ecologist William Laurance of James Cook University in Australia, who studies threats to wildlife in the Congo Basin.

“There’s no way a project like this would be allowed in most countries, because the price for biodiversity is just too high,” said Laurance.

The project has been promoted in Cameroon as environmentally sustainable, but the scientists heatedly disagree. “Those promoting this project are misleading everyone—especially the people and government of Cameroon,” said Linder. “They claim the forests they want to clear are mostly logged and degraded, but we’ve shown clearly that they include lots of tall, dense forest that’s vital for wildlife and nature conservation.” Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 4 Comments »
Tags: Africa, biodiversity, biodiversity hotspots, Cameroon, Congo Basin, deforestation, oil palm, palm oil, RSPO, William Laurance
Categories : biodiversity, conservation, deforestation, economics, environmental policy, habitat loss, harvest, oil palm, palm oil, propaganda, rain forests, reserve, tropical

A very pissed-off New Guinean versus the Destroyer of Forests

31 03 2011

I really don’t know where this came from (weird e-mail trail), but it was too good not to share.

For those of you who follow ConservationBytes.com, you might remember a fairly recent post where a group of leading conservation biologists exposed one of the most dangerous men in the world – Alan Oxley, the (very embarrassing to admit) Australian destroyer of tropical biodiversity and future welfare of hundreds of millions of people.

It seems he and his commercial interests (and my, do those fellas lay it on thick) have turned their attention to destroying the last tracts of intact South-East Asian forests (and associated biodiversity) in Papua New Guinea. Kiss some of the most endemic, biodiverse and biowealthy areas on the planet good-bye.

So it was interesting to receive this email that had been sent to Oxley’s front-company, International Trade Strategies (ITS) Global, by one very pissed off Papua New Guinean. I have no idea who ‘Bush Kanaka Mangi’ is, but he sounds the real deal and I wouldn’t want to be Oxley if he ever came across him. I cite verbatim¹:

—

Mr Alan Oxley,

HONESTLY : I am sick of getting this bloody rubbish, bullshit from you and your company ITS Global about palm oil is good for PNG, logging is good for PNG. Who the hell do you think you are ????, you seem in all your articles and consultancy reports as the expert about our country and more knowledgeable about the Melanesian society very well. My assessment of all your electronic newsletter which you circulate widely, your reflections and recommendations all are in no way closer or nearer to the way we Papua New Guineans think and want to do things and develop our nation, all of what you say are totally and purely and absolutely RUBBISH and yet you claim to know everything and know the problems of PNG and our people and on ways to solve our problems and continue your bullshit campaign in support of R&H and all its doing here destroying our forests, our society, manipulating our systems and creating confusion and hell is loose here. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 5 Comments »
Tags: Alan Oxley, biodiversity, deforestation, ITS Global, Livelihoods, oil palm, Papua New Guinea
Categories : agriculture, biodiversity, carbon, conservation, corruption, deforestation, exploitation, oil palm, palm oil, poverty, propaganda, rain forests, tropical

The bomb is still ticking…

11 11 2010

Apologies for the silence over the last week – it’s been a whirlwind here with Paul Ehrlich visiting The University of Adelaide (amazing for a 78-year old man). In the meantime, Sharon Ede over at Post Growth wrote a great response to the LOLstralian‘s high-school effort to attack Paul a few days ago. Our response is coming shortly, but Sharon’s article is a great precursor.

—

More than forty years after its publication, the predictions made in Paul Ehrlich’s landmark book ‘The Population Bomb’ are still the subject of debate. Australian think-tank the Centre for Independent Studies (‘Population bomb still a fizzer 40 years on’, The Australian, 8 November, 2010), says Ehrlich’s warnings of dire consequences, including of mass starvation as a result of overpopulation, have not materialised:

“More than 40 years ago, American biologist Paul Ehrlich sketched a doomsday scenario for planet Earth in his book The Population Bomb…Since the publication of the book, the global population has nearly doubled but most of its gloomy predictions have not come true…”

By all means, let’s have a robust debate on population, both at the national and global level. Both are long overdue.

But let’s make it a sophisticated debate, grounded in the science we have available and a thorough understanding of all the issues in play.

According to the United Nations’ Population Division, the global population has increased from one billion in 1804 to over six billion in 2010.

It has taken most of human history to reach one billion people. It took just over a century to add the second billion.

The rate of population growth since then is such that it has taken only twelve years to add the most recent billion people.

The moderate UN scenario is for a population of 9 billion by 2050 – that’s within the lifetime of many of us. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: IPAT, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Paul Ehrlich, Population Bomb, Sharon Ede, Vaclav Smil, World population
Categories : Australia, climate change, conservation, conservation scholars, ecosystem, ecosystem services, environmental policy, extinction, propaganda, The University of Adelaide

Wolves masquerading as sheep: the fallout

29 10 2010

Well, we’ve managed to stimulate quite a lively conversation after dropping the Open Letter about Scientific Credibility and the Conservation of Tropical Forests regarding the questionable tactics employed by Alan Oxley and his industrial lobbyist organisations.

Mr. Oxley has responded with vitriol, hand-waving, red herrings and straw men, and failed to address even a single one of our accusations. I am particularly amused by his insinuation that we, the proven scientists, don’t know what science is – but that he does.

Below I reproduce Mr. Oxley’s reaction to our original letter, followed by our response.

I’ll let you, the reader, decide who is most reasonable.

—

REACTION FROM ALAN OXLEY

There is too much pseudo-scientific hype today about environmentalism and forestry and not enough fact.

I put this double-barrelled question to the Group of 12 scientists who have rather laboriously wandered over the work of World Growth: What biodiversity is expressly protected by a global cessation of conversion of forest land to other purposes and how is that biodiversity scientifically measured? And let’s have some technical response, not political blather. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 7 Comments »
Tags: Alan Oxley, biodiversity, deforestation, Forest, greenwashing, Paul Ehrlich, World Growth Institute
Categories : Borneo, carbon, climate change, conservation, conservation scholars, deforestation, environmental policy, fragmentation, habitat loss, Indonesia, logging, Malaysia, oil palm, palm oil, poverty, propaganda, protected area, rain forests, South East Asia, tropical

Wolves in sheep’s clothing: industrial lobbyists and the destruction of tropical forests

25 10 2010

As of this morning, a group of distinguished scientists (which I have had the honour of being invited to join) has released an Open Letter to be published in various media outlets worldwide. The letter addresses some of our major concerns over the misinterpretation of facts, and openly misleading statements, by proponents of deforestation in the Asian tropical region. Professor Bill Laurance, an old favourite on ConservationBytes.com, has led the charge and organised a most impressive and shocking list of assertions. I produce the letter below – I encourage all my readers to distribute it as far and wide as possible in the social media-verse.

—

An Open Letter about Scientific Credibility and the Conservation of Tropical Forests

To whom it may concern:

As professional scientists employed by leading academic and research institutions, we are writing to alert the general public about some of the claims and practices being used by the World Growth Institute (WGI) and International Trade Strategies Global (ITS), and their affiliated leadership.

WGI and ITS operate in close association. ITS is owned by Alan Oxley, an Australian industrial lobbyist, former trade representative, and former Ambassador who also heads WGI. According to its website¹, ITS also has “close associations” with several politically conservative US think tanks, including the American Enterprise Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and the Heritage Foundation.

In our personal view, WGI and ITS — which are frequently involved in promoting industrial logging and oil palm and wood pulp plantations internationally — have at times treaded a thin line between reality and a significant distortion of facts. Specifically, we assert that: Read the rest of this entry »