One of the most overwhelming feelings that I used to experience when sitting through the classes that compromised my Masters in Environmental Technology was that of hopelessness. The statistics were just too depressing, the levels of pollution, poverty, extinctions, CO2 increases and the policy inadequacies and political idiocies that were making change a slow painful process when any progress is made that is. The naïve ideas that I grew up with reading Gerald Durrell that conservation and protecting the environment was all about breeding species, fencing off protected habitats were quickly lost. The reality is environmental protection is as much about people as it is about animals and plants.
This was really brought home to me during a couple of research stints in Agrapatana and in Moneragala, where the forest ‘reserves’ are ridiculously disturbed. The thing is you can’t really stop it, how do you tell a villager that she cannot use wood from the forest to boil water for her child? And for what, an obscure concept of biodiversity dear to people who already have all they need to survive and more. The only way to really protect the environment is lift people out of poverty, give them alternatives to chopping firewood, lives that are more than just about survival. Entrepreneurs, both the regular kind and social ones have as much to do in the battle for saving the life systems that support us as do conservation biologists.
But this is where I lose hope. I’ve worked for a non-profit in the US but was a bit disturbed by the general attitude I found, a lack of understanding in the ground realities in the developing world. The people were admirable but showed hostility towards things such as outsourcing that I found hard to stomach as for me, activities like outsourcing are about giving people chances. A way up in the world letting poverty go, a way for countries to get less reliant on their natural resources. Of course raising people out of poverty is a double-edged sword, the more affluent they become the more they consume, the more pressure they put on the ‘system’ so to speak. Whether a balance will be found and more sustainable ways to provide for the billions who live on the bottom of the pyramid is an answer that will probably only be evident in hindsight.
Another reason that I lose hope is the lack of inclusiveness in the environmental movement. Everywhere I look there is a lack of cooperation, a lack of understanding of an alternate view. It’s the developers vs. the hikers, NGO’s vs. governments, governments vs. the common people, etc, etc. As usual everyone is looking out for their own interests and the messages get lost in the confusion. Of course there are exceptions, but they’re frightfully rare.
Where do I see my part in all this? I started out as a kid wanting to save species at all costs, heal the environment and all that good stuff. I have lost hope in that in my opinion the battle is already lost. We will lose a lot of species in the coming decades, maybe even suffer an environmental catastrophe, one that is probably necessary before humanity will change the way it conducts its business that will cause a lot of people to lose their lives. Whether humanity will survive or go the way of the Mayans is to me a dicey question. I know I sound pessimistic, but it’s better to face the truth than bury your head in the sand. For one thing just because the fight is lost doesn’t mean there is nothing left to save.
I for one want to keep fighting.
