6 ms·

It is sort of horrible, once you think about it. Africa is the last continent on earth to have abundant wildlife. Development in Africa would mean we lose a lar

It is sort of horrible, once you think about it. Africa is the last continent on earth to have abundant wildlife. Development in Africa would mean we lose a large portion of wildlife on earth, forever.

bpodgursky 11y ago
This is not even correct. Endangered species are much safer in the US than Africa, because nobody is eating them for survival or poaching them to sell to the Chinese. Strong institutions and better-than-sustenance jobs are how to protect wildlife.
- tamana 11y ago
  How many white rhino live in America? America annihilated nearly every large animal species, as part of Manifest Destiny.
  - krapp 11y ago
    You are partially technically correct, except for the minor detail that the native tribes who probably hunted most of the American megafauna to extinction didn't believe in "Manifest Destiny" per se. The reason there were so much buffalo around when Europeans showed up was because all of their typical predators had been killed off a long time ago. Also, as far as I can tell from the limited research I care to do, there has never been a rhino species native to the New World. So to answer your question - there were probably never any white rhinos in America to begin with, and had there been, the Americans who would have killed them are not the Americans you seem to be referring to.
bhouston 11y ago
You value African wildlife more than improved living standards for the 100s of millions of Africans? I think we should preserve the wildlife as best as we can but I think we should also value increased standards of living for 100s of millions of people....
- littletimmy 11y ago
  I understand your point. But don't you think the wildlife are equally important? There are 7 BILLION people on earth... but there are just 5000 rhinos, for example. That's 1.5 MILLION people to a rhino. This is one of the most magnificent species to have ever walked earth - why shouldn't we prioritize preserving it over human comfort? Why do you value increase in living standards over a sentient species that all things considered, is a form of life just like humans?
  - pc86 11y ago
    > But don't you think the wildlife are equally important? The implicit end of that sentence is "equally important to the hundreds of millions of Africans living there." And to that, emphatically no. People are more important. Full stop. I am no anti-environmental activist. I want to see renewable energy take over fossil fuels, I want to see conscientious business taking environmental factors into account at all steps of production. But given the 100% false dichotomy of "African development" or "animals" I am going to pick the one that helps one of the most impoverished, war-torn regions on the planet every time.
    - anon4this1 11y ago
      Humans are just an exponentially increasing function which will generally grow to consume the resources available to them. Why do they deserve to be prioritised over the millions of other species on earth?
      - pc86 11y ago
        Given the choice between lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and offering huge economic opportunity to a stagnant global economy and some arbitrary (and disputed) danger to wildlife, development is the only choice. The snarky answer is probably something about how lions would not be setting up Human Preserves if the situations were reversed.
        11y ago
fauigerzigerk 11y ago
Do you really think that dirt poor countries are better at preserving wildlife than countries where people do not starve to death, die from diarrhea or burn every bush within reach for firewood? I think it depends a lot on what any growth is based on. If I understand this report correctly, their definition of economic complexity ranks countries with varied exports a lot higher than single minded commodities exporters. A Kenyan drug or machinery maker is unlikely to hurt wildlife much.
- littletimmy 11y ago
  Well, I look at it from the perspective of history. Wherever modern human development has taken hold, we've had a degradation of animal life. It happened in Europe, it happened in China, it happened in America after it was colonized. A lot of African people live in harmony with their environment. It is external development (investment from China, globalization etc.) that is hurting wildlife in their areas. Why should we accelerate the process of their development? There's absolutely no indication that an industrialized people are happier than a people living as hunter-gatherers, for example. Just let Africa be.
  - fauigerzigerk 11y ago
    >There's absolutely no indication that an industrialized people are happier than a people living as hunter-gatherers, for example. Just let Africa be. I think it's for Africans to decide how happy they are watching their children die from diarrhea so that zebras have more space. They will make their choice, but for the overwhelming majority of Africans the choice is not between being a hunter-gather society once again and destroying wildlife. That's a fantasy. There are much more important (and realistic) choices to make, such as how many children to have, how to beat corruption, how to skip some of the more polluting sorts of development models, how to finance modern infrastructure that enables a modern economy, not just one based purely and digging up commodities until boom turns to bust. The way to avoid destruction of wildlife is to have to have good policies, good education, good infrastructure and modern industries like IT, telecoms, finance, pharma or entertainment. In order to go back to hunter-gatherer societies, the first thing you'd have to do is kill 95% of the population. Doesn't sound like a happy solution to me, but if you are so fond of it, please start doing it in your own country and just let Africa be.

bpodgursky 11y ago

This is not even correct. Endangered species are much safer in the US than Africa, because nobody is eating them for survival or poaching them to sell to the Chinese. Strong institutions and better-than-sustenance jobs are how to protect wildlife.

tamana 11y ago
How many white rhino live in America? America annihilated nearly every large animal species, as part of Manifest Destiny.
- krapp 11y ago
  You are partially technically correct, except for the minor detail that the native tribes who probably hunted most of the American megafauna to extinction didn't believe in "Manifest Destiny" per se. The reason there were so much buffalo around when Europeans showed up was because all of their typical predators had been killed off a long time ago. Also, as far as I can tell from the limited research I care to do, there has never been a rhino species native to the New World. So to answer your question - there were probably never any white rhinos in America to begin with, and had there been, the Americans who would have killed them are not the Americans you seem to be referring to.

bhouston 11y ago

You value African wildlife more than improved living standards for the 100s of millions of Africans? I think we should preserve the wildlife as best as we can but I think we should also value increased standards of living for 100s of millions of people....

littletimmy 11y ago
I understand your point. But don't you think the wildlife are equally important? There are 7 BILLION people on earth... but there are just 5000 rhinos, for example. That's 1.5 MILLION people to a rhino. This is one of the most magnificent species to have ever walked earth - why shouldn't we prioritize preserving it over human comfort? Why do you value increase in living standards over a sentient species that all things considered, is a form of life just like humans?
- pc86 11y ago
  > But don't you think the wildlife are equally important? The implicit end of that sentence is "equally important to the hundreds of millions of Africans living there." And to that, emphatically no. People are more important. Full stop. I am no anti-environmental activist. I want to see renewable energy take over fossil fuels, I want to see conscientious business taking environmental factors into account at all steps of production. But given the 100% false dichotomy of "African development" or "animals" I am going to pick the one that helps one of the most impoverished, war-torn regions on the planet every time.
  - anon4this1 11y ago
    Humans are just an exponentially increasing function which will generally grow to consume the resources available to them. Why do they deserve to be prioritised over the millions of other species on earth?
    - pc86 11y ago
      Given the choice between lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and offering huge economic opportunity to a stagnant global economy and some arbitrary (and disputed) danger to wildlife, development is the only choice. The snarky answer is probably something about how lions would not be setting up Human Preserves if the situations were reversed.
      - 11y ago

fauigerzigerk 11y ago

Do you really think that dirt poor countries are better at preserving wildlife than countries where people do not starve to death, die from diarrhea or burn every bush within reach for firewood? I think it depends a lot on what any growth is based on. If I understand this report correctly, their definition of economic complexity ranks countries with varied exports a lot higher than single minded commodities exporters. A Kenyan drug or machinery maker is unlikely to hurt wildlife much.

littletimmy 11y ago
Well, I look at it from the perspective of history. Wherever modern human development has taken hold, we've had a degradation of animal life. It happened in Europe, it happened in China, it happened in America after it was colonized. A lot of African people live in harmony with their environment. It is external development (investment from China, globalization etc.) that is hurting wildlife in their areas. Why should we accelerate the process of their development? There's absolutely no indication that an industrialized people are happier than a people living as hunter-gatherers, for example. Just let Africa be.
- fauigerzigerk 11y ago
  >There's absolutely no indication that an industrialized people are happier than a people living as hunter-gatherers, for example. Just let Africa be. I think it's for Africans to decide how happy they are watching their children die from diarrhea so that zebras have more space. They will make their choice, but for the overwhelming majority of Africans the choice is not between being a hunter-gather society once again and destroying wildlife. That's a fantasy. There are much more important (and realistic) choices to make, such as how many children to have, how to beat corruption, how to skip some of the more polluting sorts of development models, how to finance modern infrastructure that enables a modern economy, not just one based purely and digging up commodities until boom turns to bust. The way to avoid destruction of wildlife is to have to have good policies, good education, good infrastructure and modern industries like IT, telecoms, finance, pharma or entertainment. In order to go back to hunter-gatherer societies, the first thing you'd have to do is kill 95% of the population. Doesn't sound like a happy solution to me, but if you are so fond of it, please start doing it in your own country and just let Africa be.