I’ve carefully qualified my case. If hunting isn’t helpful to an endangered species, then it should be forbidden. Even Aussie biologist and environmentalist Tim Flannery says that some hunting of whales should probably be allowed to take the pressure off the need to clear away the natural habitat of other species to make farmland.
You mention farming here along with hunting. Aquaculture (fish farming) is probably going to save many aquatic species by taking the pressure off of fishing them in their natural habitat. Still, environmentalists go apeshit on the topic of aquaculture (there are many unhealthy practices in the industry, but it can be regulated) because there is a large element in the environmental movement that is reflexively hostile to markets and ignorant of economics. They see the cost of everything man does, but they are unable to compare the costs of different choices.
Yes, they can be. But some species are not that photogenic or are in difficult to reach places that only a sportsman will go – surely those species deserve saving, too.
And eco-tourism is beginning to get a bad reputation. After all, to have a sustainable tourist destination, it needs to be tourist-friendly. Tourists need places to stay, water to drink, food to eat, etc. Some environmentalists say eco-tourism is ruining Thailand’s coastal regions near Phuket.
in developing nations with a different set of priorities due to living standards, and the opening of “doors” for illegal poaching!!
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Poaching happens now, under the current laws, so this is a red herring. Sustainable hunting that allows locals to share in the economic benefits might ease the need some of them have now to either support or ignore poaching that is currently taking place.
I agree with you about eco-tourism having a negative impact on the animals that it is supposed to be saving. That also needs to be limited.
You still haven’t convinced me of the need for controlled hunting of endangered animals, though.
Perhaps we need a modern day dodo to get hunters to back the hell off. Then maybe governments would have a serious think about other ways to save species instead of just throwing money and ill-conceived ideas at the problem.
Could you elaborate on this - I don’t get it![/quote]
Flannery argues that a well-regulated and controlled harvest of some whale species that are in abundance, provides meat for consumers that would otherwise come from cows or other domesticated species that require large tracts of pastureland. These types of ranches are enormously destructive to the environment, much more so than would be a regulated harvest of whales. But by setting up a taboo on whale hunting, consumers are forced into a more environmentally destructive habit.
He also argues that vegetarianism is misplaced as an environmental ethic for the same reasons as a taboo on whale hunting.
But if you limit it, you may no longer have an economic incentive for the locals to stop poaching or otherwise encroaching on these already very small areas of habitat for endangered species. And let’s be clear. The real problem with the majority of endangered species today is not legalized hunting or even poaching for overseas markets; it’s the loss of habitat by local farmers and loggers or it’s small-time poaching by local hunters. These local farmers, loggers and hunters have no reason to stop what they’re doing unless there is an economic incentive to do so. If you limit hunting, if you limit eco-tourism, you are only left with tranfer payments from either wealthy NGOs or the governments of the developed world.
This debate has been great - I’ve learned stacks about hunting, conservation etc. I have CF to thank for that (mostly)!
I’m still unclear about the whole whale meat thing. According to Flannery’s theory more whale meat on the market would reduce the need for meat such as beef which requires large areas of farmland, which destroys habitat etc etc.
But surely the demand for beef, lamb would be the same? Consumers still want their barbies in the arvo. Does whale meat taste like beef or something? I don’t see how consumer demand for conventional meats would change (not significantly at any rate) by putting whale meat on supermarket shelves.
It’s been an enjoyable debate. You kept me on my toes, especially when you brought up how destructive the hunting of lions can be when the top pride males are targeted.
[quote=“Spack”]I’m still unclear about the whole whale meat thing. According to Flannery’s theory more whale meat on the market would reduce the need for meat such as beef which requires large areas of farmland, which destroys habitat etc etc.
But surely the demand for beef, lamb would be the same? Consumers still want their barbies in the arvo. Does whale meat taste like beef or something? I don’t see how consumer demand for conventional meats would change (not significantly at any rate) by putting whale meat on supermarket shelves.[/quote]
I’ll see if I can find the Flannery quote tonight. Perhaps his explanation will make it more clear for you than my own explanation did.
I think the unwritten premise in both explanations is that if you eat, say, 1,000 calories of one kind of food, you don’t need to eat 1,000 calories of another kind of food. People who go to the restaurant or the grocery store and order a slab of whale meat aren’t ordering the rack of lamb. This lowers the demand for lamb. Thus sheep ranchers don’t have the incentive to clear away additional land for grazing pastures. The land they would have otherwise cleared away remains natural habitat for a variety of animal and plant species.
"I feel that a far better situation for conservation in Australia would result from a policy which allows exploitation of all of our biotic heritage, provided that it all be done in a sustainable manner. It may seem shocking to some conservationatists that anyone should advocate the sustainable utilisation of endangered species and rainforests. But if it is possible to harvest, for example, 10 mountain pygmy-possums (Burramys parvus) or 10 southern right whales (Balaena glacialis) per year, why should we not do it? The economic gain made from such utilisation may allow us to ask less of critically overexploited resources. Is it more moral to kill and consume a whale, without cost to the environment, than to live as a vegetarian in Australia, destroying seven kilograms of irreplaceable soil, upon which everything depends, for each kilogram of bread we consume? I fear that Australian environments are now in such crisis, our population so large, and our affluence so dearly protected, that it is only by carefully utilising all of our renewable resources that we can hope to avoid further environmental damage." [Italicized parts of text are in the original]
-- Tim Flannery, The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and People, 402-403
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