6 ms·

newsflash- poaching is lucrative enough for people to not listen when you tell them to please stop killing the animals(they'll even shoot at you if you irritate

• runn1ng 8y ago
  That's actually mentioned in the article itself.
• jmgao 8y ago
  I think it's pretty newsworthy that donations to the WWF are being directly spent on AK-47s.
  • AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
    Can you think of a better way to arm guards?
    • Nasrudith 8y ago
      High caliber long arms have better optics (no pun intended) and imply a "meant for rogue or rabid game but if poachers won't come quietly it works on them too". AK-47s are the cheap option however and also less discriminate in fire.
      • kkarakk 8y ago
        AKs are also really resilient to wear and tear-which most high caliber long arms designed for professional soldier aren't
• notacoward 8y ago
  > it is essentially a war between economically and ethically motivated people. You're leaving out the part where innocent people are being directly targeted. That's not just collateral damage. That's a supposedly charitable organization providing funds and legal/PR support to groups with a known penchant for ethnic violence.
• DennisP 8y ago
  My initial reaction was that, while I don't support torture in any circumstances, some kind of paramilitary force is probably the only way to keep the threatened species from going extinct. But there are not only the two groups of people you mentioned. There are three: environmentalists, locals, and professional poachers. The smart approach would be to get the locals on the side of the environmentalists, but instead the opposite is happening: > With deep knowledge of the land and its animals, these communities should be ideal partners in WWF’s war against poaching, anthropologists and activists said. Alienating locals only encourages them to assist professional out-of-town poachers, making that battle harder. “The Baka are the eyes and ears of the forest and could really help conservation,” said Charles Jones Nsonkali, a Cameroonian indigenous rights activist. “But they are treated as the enemy instead.”
  • kkarakk 8y ago
    so you're saying the locals will help foreigners snitch out their fellow compatriot poachers...yeah that's worked so well in the gang scene in the US
• jdietrich 8y ago
  It's a war between economically and economically motivated people. The majority of critically endangered species are amphibians. Around 30% of all amphibians are classified as critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable by the IUCN. Why have you never heard this fact before? Because practically no-one actually gives a shit about conservation. The major conservation charities are a boondoggle. Their work often has little or no basis in science, their priorities are completely disconnected with protecting biodiversity, they often work to "save" species that are under no real threat and their efforts to protect charismatic megafauna are often detrimental to broader conservation issues. As highlighted by this article, the impact of their activities on native peoples ranges from "highly disruptive" to "grievous and persistent abuses of human rights". In many places, the activities of conservation charities resembles the British Raj; vast numbers of people are uprooted from their homes and displaced to make room for wildlife reserves, despite those people often playing a vital role in protecting the ecosystem they inhabit. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1502366541/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/1502366541/
  • duado 8y ago
    The public does love its megafauna. I desperately want my son to be able to take his son to see cheetahs on a safari. As for frogs... I can’t make myself care even 1% as much.
    • AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
      Much like the poachers then, the value of the animal is based solely on its utility to you personally.
      • duado 8y ago
        Yep — so I’ll support policies to shoot them on sight and perhaps they’ll do the reverse.
  • Nasrudith 8y ago
    Amphibians I think are also more passively killed as well from development or water pollution instead of with guns for profit. Now dead is dead and they are less charismatic but the lack of open maliciousness is also a factor. It took heavy campaigning to get DDT banned after it was leading to thinning eggshell deaths of bald eagles - if the cause was men with guns the lucky outcome would be the practice banned very quickly as opposed to lynching. I doubt people would be pleased if it the main cause of amphibian decline was gunmen instead of development and water pollution. One is an emergent side effect while the other is direct malicious action.
• dragonwriter 8y ago
  > it is essentially a war between economically and ethically motivated people. The people who are, at a minimum, deliberately lying to make the alleged victims of torture that they have funded less sympathetic and discredit the accusations are, if ethically motivated at all, motivated by only the most sick and twisted ethics.
• Fins 8y ago
  Calling torture and murder "ethically motivated" seems to be somewhat of a stretch.