Milch cows get my goat.

Just after Christmas 2005 I questioned the advisability of goats, cows and camels being marketed by Oxfam and other aid agencies. After all, a quick search of the internet reveals that goats, sheep and other livestock are one of the main causes of habitat degradation and desertification in Africa. The response from the media was rapid, and I appeared on TV and Radio explaining the problem. Oxfam responded, and indeed said they would be contacting me to discuss the issue in depth. However, not only have they continued to market livestock as an ethical Christmas present, but even more organisations have jumped on the bandwagon. This is truly depressing, since it flies in the face of common sense to promote so called solutions to poverty, that in reality encourages beliefs which are entirely erroneous. If you search the internet using Google for "environmental disaster goats" it comes up with 21,300 results. Search the Oxfam website for "population control" and you get three results; search Oxfam for "goats", and 250 results come up. It says it all.

Last year selling goats as a way of alleviating poverty could have been accepted as an error of judgement. This year it can only be seen as cynical exploitation of the public and misguided philanthropy. When I last wrote about this issue, no one wrote and told me I had got it wrong (apart from a few representatives of organisations doing it, who produced no evidence that would remotely alter my opinion. On the other hand, I had a significant number of responses supporting my views, many of them from very well informed persons, with direct experience of the issues concerned.

Having spent best part of a year pondering the issue, I have begun to question the whole ethos of this type of foreign aid and come up with a new name: it's "guilt colonialism". Those living in the rich northern hemisphere feel guilty about the plight of Africa, and salve their consciences by making token donations to alleviate poverty. However, because it is largely done through western aid agencies, a) much of the funding stays in the developed world's economy, and b) because the solutions are often those of the developed world, the poor of Africa become even more aid dependent. If the aid was truly charitable it would be given to local NGOs, to spend as they thought fit, and you wouldn't need armies of aid workers being sent in to "supervise" and "manage".

The World Land Trust sent out another press release recently, and already papers and other media are taking up the issue. While we are not a campaigning organisation, I do think it very important that all agencies are fully aware of the impact that goats and other grazing animals are having on the already fragile habitats where the poorest people in Africa live. In the decades since much of Africa became independent from Colonial rule, the numbers of hoofed animals, south of the Sahara, has gone from about 275 million to over 655 million - at a time when the areas available for grazing have declined dramatically. Unsurprisingly the numbers of wild grazing animals - most of which are much better adapted to fragile habitats - have declined catastrophically.

So, while we are not a campaigning group, it would be a good idea if anyone else who shares my/our fears, makes their views known, if only by adding to this blog.

Statistics to really scare you

China has a rapidly expanding economy, and it is likely to continue to grow. China holds over $323 billion of US debt(Wikipedia, April 2006), and consequently has a huge influence on the US economy. And if China was to have car ownership at the same level of the US there would be over 1 billion cars in China. These would need 99 million barrels of oil a day -- more than the world total production of 88 million.

According to the FAO website in 1962 (the year Silent Spring was published) Brazil had 155 million hectares of agricultural land, but by 2003 another 100 million hectares had been cleared. Worldwide some 600 million hectares had been added to the agricultural lands, mostly in the tropics. That's an area the size of Argentina and India combined. I find this so scary, that it is difficult to believe, but I checked again and it seems to be right. Perhaps someone else can look into this and correct me if I am wrong.

In 1962 there were 996 million head of cattle in the world, by 2002 there were another 362 million. By 2005 there were 1,372,251,000 cattle in the world.

Another statistic: from 1993 to 2003 world production of soya bean increased by 90 million tonnes a year. Wheat production rose from 250 million tonnes in 1962 to 573 million tonnes in 2002, and the yield per hectare more than doubled in that time as well. Banana production trebled from 21 million tonnes a year to over 67 million tonnes

In 1962, in developing parts of Africa there were 183 million sheep and goats; by 2005 as most of developing Africa continues to spiral into poverty there were over 450 million sheep and goats. And bizarrely, developing countries suddenly started producing strawberries -- less than 1 tonne a year until the mid 1960s, and then an ever increasing volume which had reached 214,800 tonnes by 2005.

In the same period the United Kingdom's use of fertilizers had gone up by over 200,000 tonnes a year, but the worldwide usage had gone from 35 million to 147 million tonnes.

All this and more is on the FAO website: http://faostat.fao.org/

It's really scary stuff, if you have the slightest belief that the world's resources are not infinite. Applying a sort of Gaia theory to all the above statistics, it becomes apparent that it is not only NOT surprising that so many species are going extinct, but it is actually rather surprising that the rate is not a LOT faster.

The inferences that I draw from reading these statistics, and placing them in the context of the wild places I visit, the nature reserves I know in England and other parts of the world, is that we really are teetering on the brink of an abyss. When ecosystem collapse starts it will be truly catastrophic, and when pandemics strike man and his food resources they too will be catastrophic. An inkling of things to come was seen when the threat of avian TB loomed. We can be certain that in the relatively near future, pandemics will sweep human populations. Pandemics could also affect food crops. And if an explosion the size of the Tambora volcanic eruption took place now, the crop failures and subsequent disease and other after effects will be truly devastating. We have absolutely no excuse for complacency, but meanwhile the human population is still careering out of control. It is no good saying that the populations of countries like Britain are more or less stable -- their resource demand are not.

The Goat season approaches

Despite my criticisms, and the general failure of aid agencies to address the issues adequately, it seems more and more charities are jumping on the 'goats for Africa' bandwagon.

But before buying a goat for Christmas have a look at http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/deserts/desertification/

And not only goats. All manner of livestock. Including camels. And this is despite the fact that livestock, particularly cattle and camels are often simply status symbols. And as the website quoted above shows, in areas prone to drought, when a drought comes along, there is wholesale death and destruction of livestock. I am not saying that in some cases livestock are not a good thing in Africa, but in many many cases, goats and other livestock are a cause of poverty, not a solution. It is irresposible for aid agencies to continue to promote them as a solution. Any schoolkid logging on to the internet in Kenya or other parts of Africa will get a very wrong message.

Oxfam claims to have provided 700,000 goats to Africa in the past three years, according to an interview in the Guardian of 18 October. I don't know how many that has now grown to, but using the fact that (according to Oxfam's publicity) the goats are meant to breed, that means there's now an extra million or two goats running around eating everything they can. The Oxfam Unwrapped Team claim, to counter claims that the animals were being bred for slaughter, on their website state that the goats are "not slaughtered for meat" but only used for their milk. But what happens to all the little billy goat kids? Around 50% of the goats will not produce milk.

Other aid charities claim that they are using 'improved' European breeds of cattle and other livestock -- but don't specify how these 'improved' breeds benefit a society which generally measures wealth by numbers, not quality of livestock. In fact all the aid agencies fail to address this fundamental issue -- in most parts of Africa, livestock = wealth. So giving the poorest members of society goats can also severely disrupt the social structures. Like so much of foreign aid it is another form of aid imperialism. Telling people we know what's best for them, and making them aid dependent. Aid has been pouring into Africa for 30 or 40 years or more, and the situation in most places is significantly worse than at the time the colonial era ended in the 1960s. Is there a connection? I certainly think so. I am not against aid per se, but the way it is disbursed is often demonstrably wrong, ineffective and disempowering. I would also argue that it is often financially inefficient -- though this is difficult to ascertain, as it is difficult, if not impossible to disentangle from the accounts of the organisations involved.

And a new book, The White Man's Burden, by William Easterly, a Fellow at the Center for Global Development, argues this case very cogently, according to the reviews I have read -- though I have mot yet been able to get a copy.


To reiterate the figures: Sub Saharan Africa has seen its goat population go from a mere 77,600,000 in 1961 to 211,000,000 by 2005. And Oxfam are helping it grow even faster as a quote from their website shows:

"Oxfam gave me three goats - I did not have any goats at all before. My goats later started to multiply and after two years I gave three goats to my neighbour...At some point I sold 5 goats ... I am now left with 5 goats, of which 2 are also already pregnant." Wilma Mura, a widow in Karika, Sudan

Andrew Tyler of Animal Aid, has published some very cogent arguements against the use of animals in subSaharan Africa, from the welfare point of view, and also pointed out that a newly lactating cow needs about 90 litres of water a day..... Visit his website for more arguments against sending animals to Africa this Christmas.

Climate change suddenly fashionable

Over the past few months suddenly climate change, global warming and carbon emissions have become headline news. Newspapers and magazines are full of it, radio and TV news programmes are choc-a-bloc with it. But to me it is very worrying, because none of them are actually addressing the real problems. Those are population growth and the ever widening wealth gap.

Reducing energy consumption inevitably, in a free market economy, also means reducing expenditure for the consumer. So the crucial question, is what do we spend those savings on? Very often those savings will be spent on something that can actually use more energy than was saved in the first place -- or from a different source. As an example, one could save £50 on an electricity bill (and the energy could even be partly from renewables) and then spend it on going on a three day holiday by air to Majorca. Or buying fresh organic, fair-trade vegetables, flown in from Peru or Kenya. In the developed world we all have too much 'stuff'. Our houses are full of gadgets, we buy new clothes each season (well actually I don't, but many people do). And I make no claims to be greener than anyone else. It is the culture that we have developed over the years, and is virtually inescapable. The reality is that small gestures by individuals really don't have much impact. I am certainly not going to give up my car, or stop flying on holiday. But will certainly vote for a politician who will make it more expensive and more difficult. But unfortunately that's not likely to happen. While politicians are jumping on the carbon bandwagon, they are still encouraging more people to fly to Britain for their holidays. They will still allow cheap imports from China, which are only cheap because the workers are badly paid, and the industries are highly polluting, and do not conform to western H&S standards. I could carry on this rant indefinitely, but the point will no doubt get completely lost.

I see little hope for the future, while governments continue to ignore the fact that the world's human population continues to grow, and standards of living for a minority continue to grow at the expense of the rest. Nearly all governments assume that economies must expand, and that populations must continue to grow. The only conclusion one can come to is that the doom mongers of 25 years ago were only wrong in one respect: they got the timescale wrong. There will be massive problems in the future. Whenever natural disasters occur they will wreak increasing destruction. Epidemics will kill millions in due course, tsunamis will wipe out coastal towns and cities, and if, as I have written many times before, there was an eruption on the scale of Tambora, the loss of crops in the northern hemisphere would cause widespread famine, followed by disease, and undoubtedly wars. It's time the politicians woke up to the fact that climate change, carbon emissions and so on are all symptoms, not the cause of problems.

Insects and the hot summer, to be followed by a Silent Spring?

This year has seen some wonderful numbers of butterflies. The long hot summer really seems to have benefited them. But this is also worrying because it masks the more serious problem of massive declines of most species. Insects are spiralling and there can be no doubt that extinctions on a local regional and national scale are occurring annually. One only has to drive through the countryside to realise this. Most agricultural land is a biodiversity desert. The average field of barley, beet or wheat has significantly less species diversity that an out-of-town supermarket car park. And there are thousands of acres of crops. I am not suggesting that conservationists should welcome out-of-town supermarkets, but it's a sobering thought.

The lack of diversity is camouflaged by the fact that within the surrounding hedgerows, copses and woodlands an incredible amount of diversity survives. But acre for acre, Britain is mightily impoverished. The only cause for optimism, is that the residual diversity (still declining at an alarming rate) found in these marginal habitats, could recolonise given the chance. And with over 95% of the flower rich meadows gone in Britain, there is certainly plenty of scope for improvement. But very little sign of governments, even in so-called conservation aware countries such as Britain, doing anything serious to stabilise these trends, let alone reverse them.

It is 44 years since Silent Spring was published. And the situation is far more serious. In that time the human population of the planet has more than doubled from 3 Billion to over 6 billion. That is the real environmental crisis. Global warming, loss of biodiversity, declines of insects, are all directly related to this one issue.

Editor's note: John talks about the insect crisis in Where have all our insects gone in the November issue (Volume 24, number 12) of BBC Wildlife Magazine, and in Nature's cruel twist in the Daily Express, 24th October 2006.
Helena (WLT web admin)

Down With Sustainable Development

I have, over the years, become increasingly uneasy about the use of the term sustainable development -- trouble is, it is a byword in most conservation funding strategies, and government agencies, the World Bank etc seem to accept it as a sine qua non, that it is an ideal and objective we should all endorse. Now I have become not only uneasy about the use of the term but also its implications. It simply is not realistic. As I have written elsewhere in this blog, it is simply not feasible for the while world to aspire to the standard of living expected in Europe, let alone the USA or somewhere like Dubai.

So I am proposing that wildlife conservationist reject (almost entirely) the use of the term, and replace it with the phrase "sustainable management". This is a difficult enough target to aspire to, but at least it is reasonably realistic. If we can try and manage reserves in a sustainable way, then at least they are unlikely to increase pressure on the environment. And some development will be essential, and of course this must be designed to be as sustainable as possible. But I don't think a wildlife conservationist should ever have as a primary objective "Sustainable Development". It is invariably in direct opposition to the conservation objectives, and best described as a necessary evil. And while I am at it, let's throw out reforestation as an objective for conservationists. Restoration Ecology is what we really mean, and that is the term we should use.

Captive Breeding endangered species

All over the world zoos use captive breeding of endangered species as one of the justifications for keeping animals in captivity. Personally I do not have any great objections to animals in captivity, provided they are well housed, and kept humanely. I believe that seeing animals in zoos can have very positive educational benefits. I certainly had my love of wildlife greatly encouraged by regular visits to zoos, and by keeping animals myself. But for over a quarter of a century, I have been questioning the validity of captive breeding as a justification for zoos.

During my last visit to India I visited the Madras Crocodile Bank, and here was a clear demonstration of the dilemma that faces those involved in captive breeding. The Crocodile Bank has been so successful in breeding almost all the species it keeps, that most are now separated into single sex enclosures to prevent further breeding. There simply is nowhere else to release them into the wild. Surplus animals are sent to other zoos, and no doubt some of those zoos keeping endangered crocodiles will use them to justify themselves. But clearly there is no need for them to be kept on conservation grounds. What conservation really needs is some more habitat to be purchased and conserved.

One of the areas the WLT is hoping to assist the Wildlife Trust of India is in the purchase of mangroves and regeneration of mangroves in coastal areas. It would be very nice to be able to acquire a large enough area to reintroduce crocodiles -- but somehow I doubt we will be able to. Crocodiles are, unfortunately large predators, and humans often form part of their natural prey, so a very large are of habitat would be needed if they are not to come into conflict with human population. But if someone gave us a couple of hundred thousand pounds or more -- it could be done, as the land is available, and the crocodiles are waiting.

And more to the point, this is one of the reasons the WLT is working closely with the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums -- our Wild Spaces programme will compliment the work of zoos, providing opportunities for in situ conservation.