Overcrowding a death knell for wildlife

[Alf Bentley]

18 hours ago, Swan Lesta said:

You're talking to a guy who spent his teenage years living in woodland and chaining himself to stuff...

 

 

"Swampy Lesta".....always wondered what he did next. 

[Alf Bentley]

20 hours ago, Thracian said:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/10/earths-sixth-mass-extinction-event-already-underway-scientists-warn

 

Times I've questioned the wisdom of recklessly overcrowding our land no matter what the excuses and while this alarming report points to the folly of overcrowding it only touches on the effect being had on Europe.

 

But look at the effect.

 

Younger people flippantly dismiss us old uns for saying how much safer and better life seemed even as recently as the 60s and 70s but one of the major changes is the lack of wildlife in our gardens - or even a lack of gardens themselves.

 

 Years ago there were so many birds and small creatures to found in those gardens. But even some bigger birds like thrushes have all but disappeared and the same can be said of many smaller birds like bullfinches, chaffinches, goldfinches, blue tits, long-tailed tits, wrens and more. 

 

There may be pockets to be found in certain places but generally they are not just scarce now,  but hardly seen at all.

 

Some may wonder if it matters but it matters enormously just as the nonsense of producing and dumping plastic in the sea - or anywhere else - is so damned destructive and irresponsible.

 

I've even heard of people putting nets across local rivers to catch fish or even butchering larger birds like swans in their quest for cheap food. But we can't go on like that. So many aspects of wildlife are interconnnected and serve their own particular purpose to maintain a balance. 

 

But people just go their own way and our leaders tolerate or even encourage the most stupid practices for short-term supposedly economical benefit and just ignore or overlook the consequences.

 

I sound like someone from Save the Earth but I'm not. I've seen some of the consequences with my own eyes and lamented them for years.

 

Overcrowding and bad industrial practice has to end and quickly. Not everyone has to live in England or in any other crowded place. There's room enough for everyone if we use space sensibly and there's thought and sound environmental management.

 

Life's not all about money. At least it shouldn't be.          

 

 

 

 

                      

 

That's an interesting article about an important issue - and you make some decent points about the decline of wildlife, dumping of plastic, industrial practices, economic growth as the be-all-and-end-all etc.

 

But I don't see why you implicitly focus on immigration/overpopulation in England and even refer to it supposedly being safer in the 60s/70s?

 

The graphic in the article you post makes it clear that mammal species have been decimated much more in Asia, Australia and Africa than in Europe.

There hasn't been mass immigration into Africa, destroying lion populations, has there? Neither is Australia overpopulated, surely?

 

I don't have the expertise to try to explain he serious problem you rightly raise - either in how it affects this country or how it affects the wider world.

Certainly, rising populations mean that we have to be careful about how we use resources - and how our actions indirectly affect resources and wildlife...but it's our failure to adequately care for the environment, resources and the natural world that is the problem, more than just overcrowding - particularly overcrowding in England - surely?

 

Even with my limited knowledge, I'm aware of stuff like farmers destroying hedgerows and the excessive use of pesticides as factors in the reduction in British wildlife....that's mismanagement of resources, not overpopulation. It probably also has something to do with our expectation of low food prices, which the supermarkets then acquire for us (generating their profits) by forcing farmers to apply low profit margins or even operate at a loss (subsidised by the public via the EU) and to use high-productivity farming models that often damage the natural habitation of wildlife.

Then there are bigger, wider issues, not least climate change - the rapid change both devastating animal species and contributing to human migration flows out of Africa/Asia as life becomes less viable for many there.

Some good points have already been raised, as measures to counteract our abuse of resources: the development of GMO foods or simply people eating less meat, particularly beef. In general, we do need to get it through our heads that "life's not all about money", as you rightly say.

 

Anyway, must go and chase a couple of illegal migrants out of the garden as they're roasting the last of the chaffinches on a spit. It's a dangerous country out there now that the pigeons have taken control.  

[foxy boxing]

human beings are like germs moving from place to place infecting everything around them and using all the natural resources until we have extracted everything and then move on and do the exact same thing somewhere else, but wildlife will always find a way to survive somehow! even in heavily populated areas there is still wildlife that manages to survive and live

[Bellend Sebastian]

My cat's got cancer so that's helped the local wildlife no end by taking the edge off her already shite hunting prowess

[Thracian]

38 minutes ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

That's an interesting article about an important issue - and you make some decent points about the decline of wildlife, dumping of plastic, industrial practices, economic growth as the be-all-and-end-all etc.

 

But I don't see why you implicitly focus on immigration/overpopulation in England and even refer to it supposedly being safer in the 60s/70s?

 

The graphic in the article you post makes it clear that mammal species have been decimated much more in Asia, Australia and Africa than in Europe.

There hasn't been mass immigration into Africa, destroying lion populations, has there? Neither is Australia overpopulated, surely?

 

I don't have the expertise to try to explain he serious problem you rightly raise - either in how it affects this country or how it affects the wider world.

Certainly, rising populations mean that we have to be careful about how we use resources - and how our actions indirectly affect resources and wildlife...but it's our failure to adequately care for the environment, resources and the natural world that is the problem, more than just overcrowding - particularly overcrowding in England - surely?

 

Even with my limited knowledge, I'm aware of stuff like farmers destroying hedgerows and the excessive use of pesticides as factors in the reduction in British wildlife....that's mismanagement of resources, not overpopulation. It probably also has something to do with our expectation of low food prices, which the supermarkets then acquire for us (generating their profits) by forcing farmers to apply low profit margins or even operate at a loss (subsidised by the public via the EU) and to use high-productivity farming models that often damage the natural habitation of wildlife.

Then there are bigger, wider issues, not least climate change - the rapid change both devastating animal species and contributing to human migration flows out of Africa/Asia as life becomes less viable for many there.

Some good points have already been raised, as measures to counteract our abuse of resources: the development of GMO foods or simply people eating less meat, particularly beef. In general, we do need to get it through our heads that "life's not all about money", as you rightly say.

 

Anyway, must go and chase a couple of illegal migrants out of the garden as they're roasting the last of the chaffinches on a spit. It's a dangerous country out there now that the pigeons have taken control.  

 

a) I've referred to England because I've specifically seen the species disappear. I used to know every inch of the acres of farmland that became Leicester Forest East service station with its fish-filled pond and abundance of wildlife. I used to know every nest - sometimes of birds I've never referred to since and whose names I've forgotten and lwaited for the swallows returning to their haunts in the ivy-clad farmhouse each year. 

 

It all disappeared, not once but countless times and in countless places all over the country.  Farms disappeared meaning more food had to be produced by fewer farms requiring greater productivity, meaning faster yields and ever more use of pesticides was required at rapid and massive cost to our wildlife. And as the population grew so did the demands for space to house them - hence the hideous tower blocks that have only created their own problems and many other consequences  with regard to infrastrucure.

 

b) You're right, it's not over-population that's been the problem in the endless space of Africa but arguably - to some extent - the lack of population to effect the safety and management of a habitat which is open house to predatory man with their ever-more sophisticated equipment -  the poachers who hunt wild animals to extinction just as fishermen used to trap shoals of fish into endangerment - and still do to some extent as indicated here. 

 

.http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2016/09/04/commentary/world-commentary/chinas-fishing-fleet-plundering-african-waters/#.WWYCDojyvcs

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/30/world/asia/chinas-appetite-pushes-fisheries-to-the-brink.html?mcubz=0

 

Africa needs input and organisation.  It needs people there to make something of its potential and its vast mineral yields that are, again, being plundered by outsiders. It needs people to turn its deserts into fertile plains with the help of science and determination. The Sahara may be a forbidding desert now but that hasn't always been the case and doesn't need to stay the case. 

 

 https://www.livescience.com/4180-sahara-desert-lush-populated.html

 

 We also need to rid the oceans - and arguably the world - of plastic. It's an abomination and beyond belief that we as people should be so wilfully and extensively polluting our environment with massive disregard for the consequences to our foodstocks and, eventually, our lives.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/16/toxic-timebomb-why-we-must-fight-back-against-the-worlds-plague-of-plastic

 

 http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/microplastics-microbeads-ocean-sea-serious-health-risks-united-nations-warns-a7041036.html

 

https://www.globalhealingcenter.com/natural-health/7-dangers-of-plastic/

 

I appreciate this much precised reply is much broader than my post on the destruction of wildlife but i hope you can see the interlinked connections without my needing to emphasise the consequences further.

 

Some birds feed on fish and other mammals on the birds that eat the fish. Overcrowding equals over-demand and over demand to the cutting of corners and destruction of other habitats.  

 

Sorry to be boring on the subject but we really do have to open our eyes ecologically and socially.      .   

 

[leicsmac]

3 hours ago, Jon the Hat said:

We are massively inefficient with our use of resources because we don't value then correctly.

And we don't value them correctly because the market is based on human idea of value, which almost never extends beyond the end of our own lives.

 

I think the flaw in a market based solution to this problem is pretty clear.

[Carl the Llama]

30 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

And we don't value them correctly because the market is based on human idea of value, which almost never extends beyond the end of our own lives.

 

I think the flaw in a market based solution to this problem is pretty clear.

It's not just clear, it's invisible.  Adam Smith has a lot to answer for.

[Carl the Llama]

2 hours ago, foxy boxing said:

human beings are like germs moving from place to place infecting everything around them and using all the natural resources until we have extracted everything and then move on and do the exact same thing somewhere else, but wildlife will always find a way to survive somehow! even in heavily populated areas there is still wildlife that manages to survive and live