Kilimanjaro Lion Conservation Project

Category: General | Date: Jul 23 2008 | By: Seamus

Forgive the north american slant to today’s post. I correspond with people on that side of the pond quite a bit. Today, just a few things to think about, perhaps even comment on:

There’s an island called Santa Catalina off the Californian coast where some genius decided to leave a few bison there in 1924. You can see the film of how they brought the big hairy fellas back home.

I was chatting to someone last night about parallels between conflict here between livestock farmers and large carnivores and around Yellowstone (with wolves). Following this thread, I came across some description of the value of wolves in yellowstone (mentioned here), and a description of the state of the US of A’s national parks (here). The latter article seems a sad testament to the tendency for people to misunderstand what a national park’s primary role is (ie. why on earth should a national park even have to compete with disneyland anyway?). Ironically some of the early wilderness / environmentalism philosophers (eg. Thoreau) developed the national park idea, based on places like Yellowstone. Ah well.

And to round off, while we’re on the subject of protected areas, have a look at the article here that describes the relationship between people and protected areas… how in fact protected areas attract more people, rather than displacing them in developing nations. There are a few other fascinating angles to this article.

As follows a cut’n paste of Thoreau. Still thinking national parks are pointless or should be made into theme parks? This man is watching you….

Technorati : american wildlife, conservation, national parks, wildlife revenues

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