> This is so unbelievable and infuriating I can't begin to express my
opinion!
I can. It was within my fairly long lifetime and after WW 2 that we
really became aware of what we have done to our planet. Rachel Carson's
'Silent Spring' kicked off the ecological movement, drawing attention to
the huge number of species we are losing, resulting in a demand for
reserves which - some people need to be reminded - are areas kept
inviolate so at least we have some point of reference for how the World
used to be.
We are presiding over the greatest species mass extinction seen since the
death of the dinosaurs. It took 60 million years to get back all the
species we are now exterminating over the course of a few hundred years.
60,000,000 years to create, 200 years to destroy at the present rate.
Reserves are reserved, that is what the word means in English. Reserves
are not leftover bits of the Earth which can be deployed for war games,
exploitation, mining, extraction, industry and cities. Preservation is
what an irreplaceable Nature Reserve is all about, it is not waste land.
Natural reserves are a tiny fraction of the Earth's surface set aside as
a reference of what the Earth used to be, not derelict areas, not
commercial assets, just rare example of a lost world just left to do what
comes naturally. When their ecology is lost, lt is lost for all future
generations.
Describing damage to these reserves as "minimal" is not acceptable. There
are huge areas which are not set aside as sacrosanct reserves of what we
have destroyed elsewhere. These small areas are a heritage for future
generations and as such are irreplaceable. It is akin to destroying the
Mother who gave birth to our own species.
David Brinicombe
|