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So in Russia there's this Pleistocene Park, which is a part of tundra where grazing animals are left to be in hopes of recovering the ancient arctic steppe land

So in Russia there's this Pleistocene Park, which is a part of tundra where grazing animals are left to be in hopes of recovering the ancient arctic steppe landscape. I hope they still exist and get some finance in the current polit-economical climate. Nothing prevents the EU from buying a large amount of Indonesian lands (Brazil, etc) and making it a Orangutan paradise. Like a national park but this time actually international. I guess everybody will be happy, including Indonesia who will sell or rent out this land, and private property laws will prevent deforestation. Instead of this EU just nags Indonesia that it should preserve its pristine nature instead of developing its economy. Stick is being waived and no apparent carrots. That looks highly hypocritical, given how European countries of the past absolutely devastated their lands for the sake of economic development. Even now, Norway is planning on killing every one of their wild boars[1]. I'm not sure how the effort to reintroduce wolves elsewhere compares with that plan. Reintroduce a couple dozen wolves, kill 2k boars? Returning to the Californians, with their urban sprawl they've already wasted a large portion of landscapes in their state, taking advantage of the awesome weather they are having. When they start telling other people around the world how they should be living and developing lands, the only appropriate response is "stop lecturing us, provide material help instead". 1. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/19/norway-considers-boar-proof-fence-along-border-with-sweden https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/19/norway-conside...

myrmidon 3y ago
Wild boars are neither endangered, nor are they native to Norway, so those do not detract from conservationist efforts in any way. Buying land abroad is simply not a feasible approach to prevent deforestation, for multiple reasons: 1) Prohibitive cost: Foreign actor is not interested in owning like 5% of the deforesting countries total land area-- he wants to spend the money for preservation, not to become a titanic landowner. 2) No legislative/executive power: Naked ownership is insufficient in preventing deforestation especially in less politically stable nations. 3) Sovereignity: Do you honestly think that countries would just sell high single or even double digit percentages of their total land area to foreign governments? This is a political powder keg...
- thriftwy 3y ago
  > Wild boars are neither endangered, nor are they native to Norway, so those do not detract from conservationist efforts in any way That's exactly the spirit, right. The West will invent the rules, according to which it does not have to do anything (and be praised if it does something), whereas some other countries have to preserve nature on their own budget. I don't think that Biosphere anyhow values orangutans more than it does boars. I guess you could set up an entity in Indonesia with accordance with local laws and just pay for the privilege. I can see that most of my comments are now flagged. That's why nobody in the world listens to what the West has to say anymore. There's no possibility of a discussion.
  - myrmidon 3y ago
    > That's exactly the spirit, right. The West will invent the rules, according to which it does not have to do anything (and be praised if it does something), whereas some other countries have to preserve nature on their own budget. I don't think the boars vs orangutan distinction is very controversial; one of those is critically endangered, the other is basically an invasive species in Norway, and not even close to threatened. If you make an effort to preserve biodiversity, spending money on the pigs seems very hard to justify, not matter what kind of rules you make up... > I guess you could set up an entity in Indonesia with accordance with local laws and just pay for the privilege. This is being done already (mostly by private entities), but it is quite ineffective/impossible on a government scale, and the goal is not to keep a bunch of zoos or animal sanctuaries, but to preserve species/habitat altogether. I believe you underestimate how much e.g. the EU already pays or does for preserving biodiversity (like 20 billion € per year), so painting their efforts as purely "asking others to do the hard part/pay" is very disingenuous. I think you are being flagged because your comments came across as somewhat pro-genocidal (paying perpetrators to not/stop commit genocide is a bit... out there).
    - thriftwy 3y ago
      [flagged]

myrmidon 3y ago

Wild boars are neither endangered, nor are they native to Norway, so those do not detract from conservationist efforts in any way. Buying land abroad is simply not a feasible approach to prevent deforestation, for multiple reasons: 1) Prohibitive cost: Foreign actor is not interested in owning like 5% of the deforesting countries total land area-- he wants to spend the money for preservation, not to become a titanic landowner. 2) No legislative/executive power: Naked ownership is insufficient in preventing deforestation especially in less politically stable nations. 3) Sovereignity: Do you honestly think that countries would just sell high single or even double digit percentages of their total land area to foreign governments? This is a political powder keg...

thriftwy 3y ago
> Wild boars are neither endangered, nor are they native to Norway, so those do not detract from conservationist efforts in any way That's exactly the spirit, right. The West will invent the rules, according to which it does not have to do anything (and be praised if it does something), whereas some other countries have to preserve nature on their own budget. I don't think that Biosphere anyhow values orangutans more than it does boars. I guess you could set up an entity in Indonesia with accordance with local laws and just pay for the privilege. I can see that most of my comments are now flagged. That's why nobody in the world listens to what the West has to say anymore. There's no possibility of a discussion.
- myrmidon 3y ago
  > That's exactly the spirit, right. The West will invent the rules, according to which it does not have to do anything (and be praised if it does something), whereas some other countries have to preserve nature on their own budget. I don't think the boars vs orangutan distinction is very controversial; one of those is critically endangered, the other is basically an invasive species in Norway, and not even close to threatened. If you make an effort to preserve biodiversity, spending money on the pigs seems very hard to justify, not matter what kind of rules you make up... > I guess you could set up an entity in Indonesia with accordance with local laws and just pay for the privilege. This is being done already (mostly by private entities), but it is quite ineffective/impossible on a government scale, and the goal is not to keep a bunch of zoos or animal sanctuaries, but to preserve species/habitat altogether. I believe you underestimate how much e.g. the EU already pays or does for preserving biodiversity (like 20 billion € per year), so painting their efforts as purely "asking others to do the hard part/pay" is very disingenuous. I think you are being flagged because your comments came across as somewhat pro-genocidal (paying perpetrators to not/stop commit genocide is a bit... out there).
  - thriftwy 3y ago
    [flagged]