Like many people, I have always had a passion for wildlife in all shapes and sizes and count global biodiversity loss among the greatest problems we face. I was shocked by new research from the WWF and the Zoological Society of London collated in the 2014 Living Planet Report that found that since the 1970’s wildlife populations have declined by over 50% worldwide.
However, when voicing my concerns, I am often met with the argument (although friends tend to be playing devils advocate):
Why should I care?
What difference does the existence of Gorillas in the Virungas National Park make to me or to human species generally?
Why should we spend millions protecting other species when we can’t even look after ourselves?
I am frequently frustrated by my inability to generate an adequate response beyond simply stuttering “but they’re so nice??”.
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| Source: http://www.photovolcanica.com/VolcanoInfo/Nyiragongo/Nyiragongo.html |
This blog as part of the module Global Environmental Change (GEOG3056) at UCL
https://twitter.com/geog3057 will give me the platform to develop my argument. Over the next couple of months I will collate and consider a variety of articles, papers, books and more to explore the impact of biodiversity loss on humans. By the end I hope to have demonstrated why all life, no matter how small, is valuable and worth fighting for.
Link to Living Planet Report 2014: http://www.wwf.org.uk/about_wwf/other_publications/living_planet_report_2014/#.VD0ujtR4rYg
Link to Living Planet Report 2014: http://www.wwf.org.uk/about_wwf/other_publications/living_planet_report_2014/#.VD0ujtR4rYg
You can go down the ecosystem services route, i.e., ecosystem value to humanity such as water purification etc.
ReplyDeleteIt's a good argument but I think it's sometimes used by people who care about the environment for other reasons, trying to persuade people in a way that is likely to get their attention - and possibly also have the biggest impact on gov policy making...
Sad that nature can't be valued just for itself. Have you read/ heard of Feral? It's really good. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Feral-Searching-enchantment-frontiers-rewilding-ebook/dp/B00AHO28MW/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414601608&sr=1-1&keywords=feral