Saving Species Doesn't Harm the Poor
From New Scientist:
"ONE of the most damning charges made against environmentalists is that they destroy the lives of poor people in rainforests and other wild areas by taking over their land in the name of conservation. Nonsense, says new research.Research is published in (Oryx, DOI: 10.1017/S0030605308001889).
"The vast majority of the world's poor people live in extremely urban areas... only a small percentage live in areas that are somewhat or extremely wild," says Kent Redford of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in New York, the author of a study mapping poverty and human environmental impact around the world. Even the rural poor mostly live in grasslands, Redford says, while biodiverse forests are largely empty."
Really? People say this?
ReplyDeleteWhile I did not grow up in the rainforest, I did grow up in a really poor neighborhood (public housing and the whole 9 yds). I have read a lot of studies that it is in these urban poor areas that kids are exposed to higher environmental toxin levels than what kids in the burbs or even wealthier areas experience.
I have an enormous suite of health problems, despite my young age, which my doctors always find shocking. I have begun to seriously wonder if it is because of (unknown) toxin exposure as a child. Of course I will never be able to prove it, but it has seriously influenced my goal to live as eco-friendly as possible and support healthy habitat preservation for people the world over.