Thursday 25 July 2019

To fly or not to Fly?

Interesting discussion about the pros and cons of international travel and nature conservation. Click on facebook symbol to view. 

5 comments:

barry said...

Sorry Peter I don't buy into these arguments, things have moved on from concerns about the short term fix of economic considerations. As a species we seem incapable of finding satisfaction on our own doorsteps, we are victims of our own excesses dragging the whole planet down with us and are now into another extinction that can only be resolved by thinking "out of the box" . The unpalatable truth is that if the awful human losses of the long suffering African common man were resolved tomorrow this overpopulated World would be even deeper in the mire. Of course the remedy is so simple - just stop breeding in the spiralling numbers that even the simplest person should be getting a grasp of, but no! we mustn't be truthful in case we offend someone, unfortunately this thinking will not save us as a species.

Peter Alfrey said...

I spent the best part of ten years concentrating on local issues, trying to address detachment from nature issues in an urban community. The reality is the underlying policies and culture that govern anywhere in this country is a nature value extraction formula which is propped up by the planning legal and cultural norms system . I discovered that by trying to reverse biodiversity loses in my neighbourhood and campaigning for local issues you begin to be targeted for persecution by the council and commercial organisations and most importantly by local community leaders. Critically 'local people' don't want more biodiversity or more engagement with green spaces. Directors of housing estates in my neighbourhood describe public engagement as 'attracting scum outdoors' and many directors of chairs of community groups main objectives is reduce noise and children playing outside. Many mothers don't want bees or wasps to sting their children and many people hate creepy crawlies- some locally to here are also scared of butterflies! The detachment of western cultures from nature is near complete and personal choice and freedoms favour in door experiences and there is more and more demand for housing, development, shopping malls and cheap food on green spaces. The demand for nature is very small and trying to counter that demand is met by both resistance and lack of support from council and in our case also the conservation NGOs.

People are not going to stop breeding and multiplying, they are not going to stop demanding materialism, more products, more consumption, more experiences. Nature is going to be displaced more and more, the losses will escalate, extinction will increase, biodiversity loss will continue and eventually natural growth limits will be met and our species will be forced to reduce consumption and live within tighter resources as a means of necessity. Until we reach those natural limits to growth, this system will keep expanding and growing.

There is a small demand for nature and that is the only thing that we can concentrate on. There is a global community of nature enthusiasts/naturalists, a nature industry and an NGO network and there are sympathies within the rest of the human population. However that 'community' is a very small proportion compared to mainstream values and nature will nearly always be trumped by housing, economic growth, employment and human well being needs.

Eventually we will reach natural limits and some of the natural system will remain and between then and now our only job as naturalists is to preserve as much of that as possible while recognising the context- one of diminishing returns, shifting baselines and cataclysmic decline.

Peter Alfrey said...

I have proven beyond doubt (following ten years of complete commitment to local issues) that staying locally does not work and it is best to concentrate on the global conservation community and take any opportunities which are available to support parts of it where there is opportunity. I could sit around locally (and i have) for years and nothing will change at all for months and months while planning processes slowly unfold, campaigning will backfire (we lost our right to take visitors to our local patch, we lost key access, we lost funding for our report, I got removed from various committees, access to funding will be lost by speaking out. No matter what you do, decline will occur in a lot of cases as the forces to destroy nature are multiple times more greater than any will to defend it. You end up depressed and bashing your head agaisnt a brick wall repeatedly.

It's a crisis situation and there are no quick fixes, magic bullets or simple solutions. It's chaos and the only way to confront chaos is by each individual creating order from that chaos that they have control over- not necessarily locally.For me I can achieve more by working in places like Eastern Europe, the Azores, Ghana etc and by supporting the global conservation community. There is very very little I can achieve locally and I have wasted years of my life trying and would strongly recommend others do not do the same thing. I know what I can achieve locally (not a great deal) and will still make sure that what can be achieved here will be achieved here too.

barry said...

Do you think I enjoy running you down ? Well I most certainly do NOT it's obvious that you are one of the good guys and you have the respect and gratitude of many of us for the many positive things you have and still try to achieve on behalf of the beleaguered natural World but the vested interests out there are well organised and incredibly greed driven and we can only hope to win gradually as even they will slowly catch on that they are the architects of their own demise and will drag themselves down along with the rest of us. I think setting the right example is so important as folk such as you will be needed when push finally comes to shove and the perporaters start shouting " help what now" ?

Peter Alfrey said...

I enjoy the discussion Barry- important for all of us to re-evaluate values and strategy. I totally agree it is important to lead by example but personally I think that example should be as global citizens, addressing this problem on all scales- global, regional and local. Presumably other individuals will come to different conclusions.

I also think important to be wary of over-simplified life style choices and populist movements that focus on single issues such as diet, travel or plastic purchase choices etc in addressing the big problems. Even though those movements may be a gateway to sustainable existence, they are essentially cerebrally undemanding and often simply starting points/ comforts/ coping mechanisms/ token gestures/ virtual signalling. Real change needs to be fundamental change that affects every single behaviour and every single issue so that our individual impact on the planet is a positive one. I'm an advocate of there being infinite ways to arrive at that point and to make sense of what that even means and wary of being pulled into tribalism and populist movement- most of which are headed up by individuals with strong personal agendas, ideologies.

Setting an example by following a trend or fitting into a notion of what a good example is may or may not be a good thing- only an individual can make sense of that. Personally I think a positive impact on this planet is something that is very individually fine-tuned and unique to everyone and tribalism/society often works agaisnt the ultimate well being of the individual. Veganism is not going to save the human species but solving the crisis of consciousness that each individual faces will.