Making poverty history

Maybe I am very naive, but there's something about this whole 'Make poverty history' campaign, led by rich and famous 'celebs' that somehow does not ring true. We live in a world dominated by capitalism and one of the facts of capitalism is that the rich get richer, so inevitably, by comparison the poor get poorer. This is to me inescapable, and easily illustrated at the local, community level. If you are living on the breadline, and do not have a car, you go to the local shop and buy your food and other essentials. If you are slightly wealthier, you have a car, can drive to a supermarket and benefit from discounts. If you are even wealthier, you can shop around and afford to buy in bulk, taking full advantage of special offers, and laying in stocks when commodities are cheap.

We live in an era when governments are obsessed with low taxation. One does not need to be an ecomomic genius to realise that this benefits the rich more than the poor, since the latter are more dependent on the facilities that are provided by taxes.

So am I being naive, or can an economist out there explain how, without some neo-socialist radical redistribution of wealth, we are going to make poverty history? Hand-outs from charity and foreign aid programmes demonstrably do not work -- yet that is all that is really on offer at present. Well intentioned as I am sure they are, sending used computers to the third world, old wellington boots, used spectacles may make the donors feel good, but I believe they do nothing at all to solve the long term problems. Nor do big grants to, often, corrupt governments.

In fact, many of the solutions may exacerbate the environmental problems that organisations such as the World Land Trust are trying to combat. Extending irrigation, providing goats to poor families, 'modernising' agriculture, all have potentially serious damaging environmental impacts.

I don't know the answers, but I am pretty sure that the evidence of the past 50 years is that hand-outs and foreign aid do little to 'make poverty history'. They may even have caused it.

The main cause of third world poverty is surely the constant leakage of capital from the poor countries to the rich? And that is why the WLT's modus operandum is likely to be relatively effective in the long term. In essence all we are doing is providing the capital, to acquire land, the ownership of which then stays where it belongs, in its country of origin. That land cannot be sold to overseas investors, and income generated by the ownership of the land will help provide sustainable incomes for those working in and around the reserves; and protect the wildlife and biodiversity the reserves contain. It's a simple concept, but I believe it is effective and sustainable, and if we could carry out our activities on a much larger scale, then we might even be making a contribution to 'making poverty history'.

Pets' birthdays

I have just read an horrendous headline in last week's The Independent. The British spent £294 MILLION last year on birthday presents for their pets. Now I have gone on and on in these columns about mumbo jumbo of various sorts. But this needs to be put into some kind of perspective. And one perspective is that that sort of money could buy outright something like 20 million acres of rainforests and other habitats.That's an area bigger than Scotland. And add to that the £900 million spent on cat food in the UK alone, and an area bigger than the rest of Britain could have been bought. That's without dogfood, and a whole host of other pet related expenditure. If we could channel one half of one half a percent of the money spent on British pets into saving forests -- just think how much we could save.

So why not drop 5p or 10p into a tin every time you feed the cat (or even 1p) and then once a year send it to the WLT to buy land?

Mumbo jumbo

I noted that last week an extensive piece of research in Switzerland into homeopathy concluded that there was no effect greater than that of the placebo effect. In other words, homeopathy has absolutely no scientific basis whatsoever, despite the scientific mumbo jumbo that its proponents dress it up in. Like the so-called Bach remedies and countless other 'alternative' medicines or 'complimentary' treatments, they use what appears to be scientific terminology, but when subjected to scientific scrutiny fail. While all science and medicine has its failings, and fashions and theories change, at least these can be tried and tested. The problem with homeopathy and many related alternatives, is either they cannot be tested, or when tested produce results that re easily explained by placebo effect. Thought about rationally, even some of the more plausible become difficult to accept. aromatherapy -- if the oils did indeed perform the extraordinary feats attributed to them, would presumably cause havoc in the bodies of the masseur or masseuses. Of the more bizarre claims, reflexology takes some beating for irrationality -- tickling the feet to affect the head and shoulders. But the millions of pounds spent each year by the gullible public is simply an indication of conspicuous consumption -- as described in that often overlooked masterpiece by Thorstein Vebelin, written over a century ago, The Theory of the Leisure Class. We will spend millions on perfumes, cosmetics, bottled water, and quack medicines, while allowing the environment to deteriorate. It's a paradox, easily explained by the fact that business has yet to find a way of exploiting the natural environment that is as profitable as bottled water, quack medicines and costmetics. That's the challenge for the future.

Conservation money - fundraising or land purchase?

In January 2004 I wrote a blog deploring how little conservation money was spent on land acquisition. Over 18 months later, a quick look at the UKs wealthiest wildlife conservation body (WWF) shows the situation has deteriorated. For clarity, I have reprinted my original with the revised figures in brackets taken from the WWF accounts for 2003/2004.

Quote:
"Global warming is a major issue, and so is habitat destruction and the many, many other forms of anthropogenic change that adversely affect wildlife. But most of these need governments to take action. Conservation bodies and the public should take action where they are most cost effective. Look at how much money WWF has spent over the past 40 years on research, then see how many acres of land that would have acquired world wide. In 2001 WWF's income was around £30,000,000 [£36,000,000] in the UK alone (I know a lot of that money could not be spent on land, even if they wanted to, but it does give an idea of the scale of things). £30 million would buy at least 1.2 million acres of land -- probably well over 5 million acres [£36 million would buy in excess of 3 million acres, possibly 8million]. Even in England it would probably buy over 10,000 acres [15,000 acres]. To give an idea of size, the State of Massachusetts is less than 2 million acres. And Belgium is just over 7 million acres." end of quote. And tropical forests the size of Belgium are lost every year.

Looking at the WWF accounts in greater detail, they now have over £20 million in assets. But land purchase does not appear anywhere in their activities, and while their expenditure on conservation is huge, so is their expenditure on fundraising and related activities. I am not sure what the general opinion is on levels of expenditure -- but over 23% of the income was spent on fundraising in various forms, and this is before any admin or management costs are deducted. What do my readers feel about this? If the World Land Trust was to up its expenditure on fundraising activities, there is little doubt that we would raise more money, but would spending nearly a quarter of income be acceptable, even if it raised income dramatically? Thoughts and comments please.

Fears realised

Last night one of my great fears was realised, live on BBC TV. Well not strictly live, but in a recorded 'reality' TV show. In the latest of dire reality shows, a family used to wasting huge amounts of energy and other resources was subjected to the inquisition of a (rather overweight) eco-guru. They were forced to abandon their cars for short journeys, use public transport, cycle or walk, and they were also required to wash their cars, not with a hose, but with buckets of water. There was a lot more, but it was pretty dire, it really was, so I kept losing concentration. But the upshot was, at the end of their week, the eco-expert announced that they would save over £2500 in the course of a year if they kept up these practices. Jolly good was the response, we'll all be able to go on holiday. End of programme, credits roll. But hang on, doesn't going on holiday usually mean a transAtlantic flight to Florida, or something similar, to a resort that uses gallons of water, and has probably chopped down a pristine mangrove swamp.

With eco-friends like these, who needs enemies for the environment. Environmental issues, like ecosystems are complex. Glib, simplistic solutions do more harm than good, just like spraying generic pesticides.

British Birdwatching Fair 2005

For the second year, the World Land Trust had a stand at the British Birdwatching Fair, a three day event at Rutland Water. Rutland Water is about as central as you can get in England -- which makes it pretty well as inconvenient for everyone attending. Inaccessible by public transport and despite a close connection with wildlife and conservation, not a particularly 'green' event.

However, despite some obvious criticisms, it is an event attended by thousands of keen birders, and it is a chance to meet with colleagues and businesses.

The Birdwatching Fair has been in existence for the same period as the World Land Trust. And in that time has raised £1.2million (not counting this year). Last year it raised £164,000, and was attended by 17,500 visitors, and there were 300 exhibitors. All the gate money (£10 entry fee) goes to BirdLife projects, but what is depressing is how tight-fisted the average birder is. They will spend hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds on binoculars and telescopes and other equipment, and they will spend vast amounts on holidays to see birds, but only a tiny fraction of all that on conserving the birds.

While on the WLT stand I came up with a radical new idea for admission charges for birdwatchers visiting reserves: they should be charged 5% of the cost of their optical equipment. That would soon raise some funds for conservation, particularly in places like Ecuador or Brazil. If you can afford to spend £1000 on optianotherther £1000 or so travelling to exotic locations, £50 entry fees seem reasonable to me.

Water, water every where, and only in a bottle to drink?

The great con' at the begining of the 21st century, and one of the worst enviromental messes, is water. While a huge proportion of the world have no access to clean drinking water, almost the entire delevoped world, flushes much of its clean drinking water down lavatories, or washes in it, and then buys water in glass or plastic bottles to drink. The latter is shipped around the world, using vast amounts of energy, conferring no measurable benefits (other than psychological ones) on the consumers. It is one of the world's largest and most profitable industries.

Howls of protests from the drinkers of bottled water. Claims that they really can tell the difference. To which I retort "Bunkum".

I have on occasion resorted to blind tastings. If the consumer is presented with a wide range of bottled and tap waters, it is doubtful if more than an insignificant number of them can identify the various waters. What I have found is that fresh tap water, when it is highly chlorinated can be recognised -- but let it stand, and the chlorine goes -- and that a few highly mineralised waters have a distinctive taste. But most bottled water is no more mineralised than tap water. In fact, the majority of bottled waters have no taste, and some indeed come from the same sources as tap water. The most important factor in taste seems to be temperature. Give a person chilled tap water, and they will probably like it better than luke-warm bottled water.

But it is the chattering classes, so often environmentally aware, that are the most prone and gullible in the water market. Just as they are the most likely to buy homeopathic medicines -- another form of bottled water with no quantifiable differences that distinguish it from distilled water.

If those who buy bottled water, were to give the equivalent amount to conservation of wildlerness (which often plays a very significant role in protecting watersheds, and water supplies), think how much land we could save.

The average European now drinks over 17 cases of bottled water a year, and the average cost of that water, per litre, is around the same, or more than petrol!

The following website shows just how we're all being led by the marketting:
http://www.brandchannel.com/features_effect.asp?pf_id=88

And this one gives some more sources
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/NaomiSaintJean.shtml

So next time you drink bottled water, why not donate the equivalent amount to the WLT, and think how much more good you are doing for the planet