Population, human population. That's the problem

Why, oh why do the politicians ignore it? The real problem behind all the crises facing the world is not a shortage of oil. It is not the credit crunch, it is not global warming. It is the thing that fuels all of these, It is the ever expanding human population and its ever increasing greed. The rich get richer, until many are what can only be described as obscenely rich, while the poor not only get poorer, but there are more of them. Governments and aid agencies pour millions into "poverty alleviation" in Africa, and meanwhile the population continues to grow, natural resources are further depleted, and wildlife disappears. Human population growth cannot continue indefinitely, so why not call a halt now?

Tackiest fundraising awards

An opinion poll. I think this is one of the tackiest bits of fundraising for wildlife conservation, I have ever come across.

What do you think? Or is there something even tackier?

I have nothing against cuddly toys, but in this context, I do wonder if pursuing such blatant consumerism is the best way of saving wildlife.

Any ideas?

How to stop overfishing

I read a short item in The Ecologist this month (October issue) about Greenpeace dumping 3 tonne blocks of granite in the German North Sea to foul the fishing tackle of bottom trawlers. It struck me as a very neat way of enforcing fishing controls, and one that governments could do well to endorse. Dumping large objects in the sea could be a very simple way of enforcing no fishing zones -- at least as far as the highly destructive bottom trawlers are concerned. It reminds me of the proposal to decontaminate the decommissioned North Sea oil platforms, and sink them. This would have been far cheaper for the oil companies than towing them back to land for dismantling, but was unfortunately opposed by Greenpeace and other environmentalists at the time.

Awards (again)

It's that time of the year. One of the most useful magazines for me as the CEO of a charity is Third Sector. It is bang up to date and full of relevant news. BUT, it has awards for the most admired charity, the most admired ceo etc. And it smacks of the Eurovision song contest.
The winners are chosen from a list drawn up by 'a panel of the sector's leaders'. Three consecutive winners of the "Celebrity Charity Champion" were HRH princess Royal, Bob Geldorf, and HRH Prince of Wales. Beat that for originality. And Medecins sans Frontieres won two years running. And Actionaid was apparently the most innovative charity.

Only one of the so-called celebs listed for selection this year, have I actually heard of. The others, are all presumably minor TV actors

All goes to show something.

The goat season approaches

Last year the Environment Funders Network published a report "Where the Green Grants Went". And I presume it represents the interests of the Trusts and Foundations that make up the Environment Funders Network. In this report, one of the more bizarre pieces of information I came across was that these environmental funders had given grants totalling £1.3 million over a three year period to Farm Africa, an organisation that specialises in promoting livestock use in Africa. And in particular 'sells' goats and other livestock as a way of fundraising. Now any reader of this column will know that I have railed against this for several years. Promoting livestock in Africa, is about as environmentally irresponsible as one can get. The number of goats, cows, sheep, camels and other livestock has spiralled over the past half century, and habitat degradation is a direct result. So the question is how is funding organisation that promotes expanding the keeping of livestock and green?

I will, once again, urge everyone to question the agencies involved, as to why they see fit to encourage more and more livestock in Africa, in the full knowledge that one of the main causes of environmental damage is overgrazing by livestock, and it has a direct correlation with poverty. And also ask all the agencies involved to produce the Environmental Impact Assessments they carried out before dishing out more livestock. Finally, they could be asked about the studies carried out as to the likely socio-economic perturbations caused by hand-outs of livestock.

I know the answer to some of these questions: very few environmental impact assessments have ever been carried out, and very little information about the social impacts of the hand outs has been published. The aid agencies and charities should be held to account.

The Population Bomb. And the causes of poverty. An update

Readers of my blog, will be familiar with my rants about how we are ignoring the real issues that drive climate change, endanger species, destroy habitats: i.e. rapidly increasing human populations.

I have just returned from an extensive visit to South America, and unlike Africa, this is a part of the world that is experiencing rapid economic growth. Increasing prosperity. And even more rapid destruction of natural resources.

I was also able to see first hand the results of doing-good by aid charities and missionaries. Not a pleasant experience. And it reminded me of the response I got from one of the world's largest aid charities when I asked them what their policy on human populations was. Here it is, verbatim:

Thank you for your e-mail. Christian Aid does not have a specific policy on population. Our mission is to help people in developing countries improve their lives. We do this by exposing and tackling the root cause of poverty and injustice worldwide. We support and fund projects in developing countries that enable communities build sustainable economies.

To me, it is utterly incomprehensible how an organisation delivering aid to human populations in the most impoverished areas of the world does not have a policy on something so indelibly linked with poverty. And of course, the root cause, which they claim to be tackling, is obviously unsustainable population growth.

And presumably the sustainable economies they are helping build, are based on the unsustainable market economies of the donor countries.

Collins New Naturalists

The Collins New Naturalists are a British institution. Not only are they a particularly fine series of reference books on British wildlife and natural history, the series has become even better known as highly collectible. There is no question that the volumes contained within the series remain among the finest books available on the topics they cover, and even those that are out of date, still remain useful as historical documents. Some of the volumes have been completely rewritten and revised, but even in these cases, the original, long out of date volume, still remains useful.

But as collectors items, the series epitomises the stupidity of collectors, who collect for collecting's sake. The fanatical collector of new Naturalists must have the first printing of the first edition, complete with mint dust wrapper. And of course, this often means that the first printing of a first edition had minor printing errors, that were later corrected. And in many cases dust jackets were what they claimed to be: Covers to keep the book clean, before sale. In the case of the Collins NNs, however, the dust wrappers were beautifully designed, and deservedly became collectors items in their own right. However, because of the collectors' market, dust wrappers became valued beyond any real intrinsic worth, and of course are very easy indeed, with modern high quality photocopying facilities, to fake.

If ever you come across a New Naturalist collector (and many of them are genuinely interested in natural history as well, they will, like so many collectors tell you how much this and that is worth, and how their prized possessions are increasing in value. The reality is rather different. If you were to compare the price of many of the books with their original value when sold, they have declined. A book costing 30s in the 1940s, when a week's wage could be under £5.00, may still only fetch £20-£30 . And a quick search of the internet will show that many of the so-called rarer volumes can still be picked up for relatively modest sums. And of course, for the real naturalist, there is the advantage, that reprints and ex-library copies, usually under a fiver, abound. Allegedly, one of the rarest was a monograph on Ants, published in the 1950s, and apparently withdrawn from sale soon after publication. But if this was the case, there are still a remarkable number of even this, which should be the rarest of the rare, floating around.

I cannot take too seriously the collectors market, but it is gratifying in one way -- it means that HarperCollins have got a guaranteed market for new volumes, on almost any subject they like to publish, however specialised.