Dakota

All Kinds of Elephants

View larger image

Sunday morning synchronicity. Wasn't I ranting all week about embedded neoconservatives permeating the federal government with the intent of destroying it? Well... wasn't I? Here's a place they haven't infiltrated yet.

I awakened to "Living on Earth", to hear that neoconservative termites are eating the Fish and Wildlife Department and, with it, the Endangered Species Act. Here's spokesman Chris Tollefson:

All of us recognize that the ESA is one of the most important environmental laws ever enacted. But there's also a recognition that every law could be improved. And so, you know, the secretary came to us as an agency and said, "You know, take a look at it and see what you can do." This is nothing that is happening under the radar, this is how we always develop policies and regulations. This will be a very public process.

I'm sure.

The villians are also in a hurry to consume EPA Watchdogs - from the introduction:

From Washington this past week comes news of a move that could weaken enforcement of anti-pollution laws. The independent office that serves as the watchdog for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is being put on a shorter leash, and may lose some of it's bite. The budget of the office of the Inspector General at the EPA is being cut. Some critics charge the cut is politically motivated.

Reporter Rebecca Clarren:

Well, I think it is no secret that this administration has never been a huge fan of the Endangered Species Act. Um, So they appointed Dirk Kempthorne, who was Idaho governor and was also served as senator from Idaho in the late 90's and this is a man who has never been a fan of endangered species protections in his state. He wrote some legislation that would have really over hauled the Endangered Species Act back then that congress shot down. But a lot of the regulatory changes come from that. They also, looks like a lot of the language is lifted directly from a very contentious bill by Pombo, a congressman from California, former congressman, that was also shot down in congress. So you're seeing the Bush administration trying to insert into regulatory changes, things that congress has already decided we, as a country, didn't want to see.

One man told me, who's recently retired which is why he could talk on the record, said we're like a bunch of whipped dogs there at the agency these days.

At the risk of overwhelming you, there are the bees and the The New York Times Magazine recently published a heartbreaking article on elephants gone mad because poaching has been so devastating to their social structure. Samuel Wasser Director of the Center for Conservation Biology University of Washington Seattle:

When elephants are being poached so heavily one of the things that happens is first they poach the large bulls because they have the largest tusks. And then they go to the next largest tusked animal, which is the matriarch, the big female which is in charge of the whole social integrity of their group. And as they kill these old matriarchs the younger ones are becoming very distressed just from killing of their family members but also so much knowledge is lost when you loose these old females. For example if you have drought occurring every twenty years or so that may require you to use resources that you only used every twenty years. And if the animals that know where those resources are, are now dead, you can't get there. The other really important thing to note about elephants is that they're really remarkably intelligent. In fact there was recently a study where they put up mirrors in the elephant's cage and it very very quickly became able to recognize itself. And then what they did was they put an X on the elephant's forehead. And when the elephant looked in the mirror it took its trunk and actually wiped the X off. That is a very high level cognitive feature. So when we rip apart their family from poaching, we're doing much much more than people really appreciate.

About increased demand for ivory

When the ban [on ivory] first went into effect in 1989 it was probably the single most effective act of wildlife legislation ever. People were up in arms and they stopped poaching almost over night. And then by about 1993 Western aid realized that they had the problem under control or thought they did and they withdrew the aid. But what really happened that was the clincher was the economies in the Far East began to grow, especially the middle class in China and also in Japan. And this created an insatiable desire to own ivory because it was a sign of prestige and that you have achieved wealth....

And lastly what is really important is to educate people in the Far East to start using alternatives besides ivory. And one of the things that we are proposing there is to get celebrities in the Far East to start coming out against usage of ivory. There was just a very very successful initiative by Wild Aid to stop the purchasing of shark fins in China. They got a very famous Chinese basketball player to come out against it. This kind of thing is remarkably effective in getting people to reevaluate their desires.

Yeah, let's all get people to reevaluate their desires, and see how it goes. Couple of questions to start with. Do you want to live in a functioning democracy or a police state. Do you want to drink clean water. Do you want to breathe clean air. Do you want to be rich at the expense of others? Do you want it to be possible for humans to live on Earth?

Photo note: I know I said that I didn't take any good pictures in China, but this one seems spookily relevant. After I shot it in a window in Hong Kong, I noticed the sign that said "No Photographs" in English. By the time I saw it, it was too late. I didn't stick around to shoot the sign.

Posted by Dakota at April 1, 2007 07:43 AM