Biodiversity 101

Having once been a card carrying environmentalist and conservationist, I broke rank with that fraternity when I came to understand that as things stand now, the best thing communities can do for themselves is to have a great big barbecue, feast on all the wild animals in their backyards, and on a full stomach, plan their way forward. Why I came to that conclusion is a story to be told on another day.

I did, however, get foaming-at-the-mouth upset when I read about the 228 leopard tortoises intercepted at JKIA enroute to Thailand (that country that seems to want to turn itself into east Africa by acquiring our fauna) from Uganda. But wait! Why get mad at the Thais who were importing “shells”? Rather get mad at ourselves for being clueless enough to sell our heritage for a pittance… because there is no price high enough to compensate the environment or posterity for the loss of biodiversity. Yes it is poverty that drives us to these acts. Not just the poverty directing you to say ‘I need to eat today’, but also a poverty of knowledge, of a connection to nature which would allow you to understand that by selling this today, you have actually impoverished your tomorrow... but then again, why worry about that when it was already impoverished?

In both the villages I consider myself from, young unemployed men insist that God put them there, at the foot of a forest, and at the edge of an ocean, so they could exploit those natural resources. Back when I was a bleeding-heart liberal and tree-hugger I remember my father stopping to buy charcoal on the roadside somewhere between ukambani and taita. Very few trees in sight, and yet there were several bags of charcoal lined up along the roadside. I asked one of the (shirtless) young men selling them, as a bleeding-heart liberal is wont to do, whether he was planting any trees to replace the ones he was consuming, and what he would do when he finished all the trees suitable for charcoal making. He laughed and answered simply, “we’ll just move on to another place.” Of course I am not blameless because I went on to eat many a meal cooked using those dead trees.

I once met a man who was paying boys in the village to collect chameleons … he had found an overseas buyer for them and was exporting as many as he could get his hands on… never wonder again why you don’t see as many chameleons as you used to back in the day… butterflies suffered the same fate… so did sea cucumbers... and so did the animals that were sold to Thailand last year (anyone have updates on the current situation there?). God only knows what else is ‘hot’ on the market right now… other than leopard tortoises.

What are you thinking when you ship 250 live tortoises (and I don't care how rapidly the reproduce!)? Obviously not about the biodiversity you just cost your country. Just because Geochelone pardalis are not yet on the CITES endangered species list is not an excuse to export this large a number. Besides, how do you think other animals got on the darned list in the first place?

Other countries that killed off their biodiversity have something concrete to show for it… booming economies, tarred roads, rural electrification. To the Ugandans (and Kenyans) responsible for our diminishing stocks of flora and fauna: It is just plain irresponsible to kill off your biodiversity and have no benefits accruing to the community at large!