Europeans care more about elephants than people, says Botswana president
Europeans care more about elephants than people, says Botswana president
www.theguardian.com
Europeans care more about elephants than people, says Botswana president
16 comments
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If rich people can trophy hunt elephants than I get to trophy hunt rich people
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Elephants aren't destroying the world.
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Neither are regular, common people in botwasana.
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The debate is about legalized and ostensibly regulated trophy hunting by tourists. So "Europeans" presented as a monolith here is confusing things: some of those trophy hunter tourists are European, who obviously don't care about elephants, which is why other Europeans are trying to stop them.
The president of course is correct to say that it is unreasonable for the Global North to demand that Botswana does not develop its standards of living in order to preserve wildlife. It is a colonialist way of seeing things.
The answer cannot however come from the destruction of the elephants, who are humanity's shared heritage. Europeans have a stake in Botswana's elephants as humans same as Botswanans have a stake in, say, the Parthenon or Stonehenge: as humans, as a shared human heritage.
The answer should instead be for the Global North to pay to Botswana development subsidies, increasing them as needed to achieve the required balance. So that standards of living can improve without needing to endanger the elephants.
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Europeans have a stake in Botswana's elephants as humans same as Botswanans have a stake in, say, the Parthenon or Stonehenge: as humans, as a shared human heritage.
Europe had its elephants too. Lions once lived in southern Europe, and wolves in Britain. Aurochs roamed all of Europe except Scandinavia. Wonder where all that shared heritage went.
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That's a silly argument. Lions for example haven't lived in southern Europe since antiquity. If you're going to ask pointed accusatory questions of the Greeks for the fate of lions, go and ask the same of the indigenous people of North America about the fate of giant sloths. The concept of managed biodiversity conservation is a modern one.
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The Europeans of today do not have any way to influence what the Europeans of the past did.
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I've never met an elephant who staged a coup when their party of redneck facists failed to win a general election.
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Just to be clear this isn't what the President of Botswana did either.
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Elephants are incredible animals. They have complex communication and even communicate through seismic vibrations through the ground via their feet, and they can even recognize the elephant sending the seismic message. Additionally, they have cultural practices, including funeral rituals.
For citations for these claims and more information, here is a blog post of mine (I have ads turned off and don't benefit from my blog in any way).
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Honestly very disappointed in the comments here. There’s a valid point to what he’s saying, and the “have you met people?” line of thinking just talks right past that.
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Well... yeah? The world needs less humans and more elephants.
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That's ecofascist thinking.
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We should start by getting rid of westerners. Let's do Europe first.
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16 comments
Have you met people?