It should come as no surprise that humans’ feelings about an animal can determine how protected it is. Foregrounding heartstring-tugging flagship species therefore makes conservation sense for whole ecosystems
conservation
Posted inEnvironment, Equality, General, Media
Dear Western critics, your fake outrage about Botswana’s elephants is a colonial longing
By Lorato Palesa Modongo “Come Kitty. We want to empower you. No, your mother cannot do this. Your government cannot do this. Time cannot do this… We will teach you how to commune with nature, grow ecologically friendly crops, trade fairly with eco-tourists and receive visitors from United Nations who will clap when you dance.” […]
Posted inEnvironment
Want to help lions? For real?
Before I kick-off with this, let me state upfront so nobody can miss it: lion breeding in South Africa should be banned. The hunting of lions is clearly out of sync with middle class, Western public sentiment, and increasing their numbers merely exacerbates the problem. Breeding big cats for the gun is something that will […]
Posted inEnvironment, General, News/Politics
Lion hunts and other things we don’t like
All of us have that button. That thing that makes us see red, the thing we hate, which if we were in charge we’d ban immediately. In the past, people in power have been deeply offended by the notion that anyone who wasn’t white and male could have the vote. That gay couples could marry. […]
Posted inGeneral
Conservation innovation can help
Rhino poaching has been a hot topic in South Africa and across the globe for a few years now. Yet despite our very best efforts these gentle giants are still being poached at an alarming rate. Last year saw 668 rhinos poached on South African soil. Disappointingly, this year seems to be no different with […]
Posted inEnvironment
Poaching, poisoning and the consequences
Recently in Zimbabwe while the country was preoccupied with its general elections, the press almost completely ignored a catastrophic chemical poisoning of animals. Ivory poachers killed more than 80 elephants by poisoning water holes with cyanide. The elephants had constituted one of the world’s biggest herds, and were slaughtered in Zimbabwe’s largest park, the Hwange […]
Posted inEnvironment
The white-throated needletail and passing of precious things
I recently travelled to the picturesque town of Hamilton, New Zealand, through which the ethereally beautiful Waikato River courses, a body of water deemed sacred to the Maori people who refer to it as a tupuna (ancestor), a taonga (treasure), and a mauri (life force). Featuring in the headlines of this far-off place were regular […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Save the lions ad ‘censored’
By Emma Ruby-Sachs This year the poaching of more than 430 rhinos in South Africa has rightly dominated the news. The massacre of these animals has forced the government to respond with more rangers in Kruger and stronger surveillance at the airports. Sadly the energy and hand-wringing to protect one species is not extending to […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Sticking a rhino horn to China’s Giant Panda
Developing nations don’t hold much truck with wildlife conservation for sentimental or scientific reasons. In places where human existence itself can be nasty, brutal and short, animals are butchered without compunction and often with thoughtless cruelty. They are clubbed, shot, stabbed, fished, or slaughtered with zero regard to the long term effects on species survival. […]
Posted inGeneral
Going green in 2012: 12 steps for the developing world
Many of us are thinking about the changes we want to make this year. For some, these changes will be financial; for others, physical or spiritual. But for all of us, there are important resolutions we can make to “green” our lives. Although this is often a subject focused on by industrialised nations, people in […]
Posted inMedia
Daydreaming into disaster
By Roger Diamond Fantasy and imagination will cause our downfall. The ability of humans to live inside their heads is allowing our civilisation to destroy everything around us, the things we can find most joy from and the very things we need to survive. While people watch computer-animated images of smiling creatures hopping across ice […]