*giggles* I know. How cool. Mine was like four minutes long with several breaks for editing whereas the rest were like two minutes. YEY!
Here's the transcript of mine, I'll do the rest if I get round to it.
Man and nature
S: “What have you found or what do you think is the main reason for the extinction of animals?” (small laugh) “Is it mankind's predisposition to not nurture nature or a greater emphasis being placed on charity towards human suffering?” I don’t think those are the two right options necessarily. I’m not sure that animals are extinct because we care more about human suffering though we could always care more about animal suffering I suppose…Firstly you have to point out that extinction is part of the natural order. We will become extinct whatever we do, eventually, but having said that, obviously, surely, man has accelerated the extinction of many species –
M: Yeah. That’s the point. Extinction is happening much much faster and nobody can agree on the figures of course, it’s just guesswork, but it’s got to be many many many times faster than it did before we were around and before we started interfering so much with the natural world. It’s an interesting thing though, this question about putting more emphasis on human suffering – I don’t see conservation as just wildlife –
S: No.
M: We’ve already seen in these first few trips it’s so integral with human survival as well
S: Absolutely.
M: The only way to protect a forest is to involve the local human population who rely on the forest as much as the animals do.
(edit)
M: The other part of the question is ‘what’s the big problem’ and it’s – we’re the big problem and I think if you had to put your finger on one thing…I mean there are many different threats to wildlife and the natural world but it has to be habitat destruction
(edit)
M: Well when Douglas and I were here there were ten million people in Madagascar and now there are twenty one million people in Madagascar
S: Exactly.
M: and so you’ve got twice as many people going after the same resources and it’s obviously going to be having a massive impact
S: Absolutely.
M: you can’t deny and the world population is increasing exponentially
S: So the pressure on food, on simply clearing woodlands, and forests, and other precious and rare and difficult environments to manage clearing them for growing food – we all think the children of the world should eat, well of course we think that, of course we think there should be new crops here and ‘oh! Isn’t this exciting here’s a crop that means packaging can no longer made of plastics and can biodegrade because it’s made of soya gum or something’. But of course that’s clearing a huge forest to grow a cash crop which is inimical to all kinds of species and we’re driven crazy by this… but I suppose that’s what the question’s at the heart of, is there a contradiction, is it possible to save human beings from starvation and misery and hunger AND not ruin
M: It is.
S: It is, of course.
M: A lot of the big problem areas are poor areas and it’s all very well that we go in with all our ideas and theories and things that have worked in other countries but it involves a huge amount of money, and a huge amount of time to help people to develop these different ways of living and new ways of managing the land
S: We, Western Europeaners in particular have already ruined our habitat to a certain extent
M: To a great extent.
S: We’ve already got rid of our forests, we’ve got rid of our wolves and our bears and many of our bigger mammals and we have created our own you know island of Europeanness and now we look out at these poorer countries and tell them how to behave. It’s a bit like we also tell China it mustn’t industrialise too fast or makes too much pollution when we have done all that!
M: I agree, we’re incredibly hypocritical. And I think one of the best examples is – there’s this debate about reintroducing wolves to Scotland and yeah everyone’s up in arms, ‘oh wolves are dangerous’ and ‘it’s going to cause this problem with sheep farming’ and blah blah blah and yet we’re at the same time saying to people in Africa ‘well you should be living alongside lions, what’s the problem?’
S: Yes! (laughs)
M: And in India, ‘well why are you so upset about the odd maneating tiger?’
S: Yes!
M: ‘They’re not all maneaters’ and it’s so hypocritical, you have to sometimes sort of pull back and think you know living alongside dangerous animals or whatever the issue is is relevant to them as it would be to us.
S: You’re absolutely right. You can guarantee that the average Briton, especially one with children, if they saw a wolf, they would be on the phone saying ‘the Government should do something about this, there are wolves near
my children’ and all their sudden anger at watching ‘oh isn’t it a shame about the way the habitats of the world are destroyed’ would be forgotten, and we have to remember that about ourselves, that although we are capable of astonishing altruism we also fundamentally amazingly selfish.
M: This is why (fades out)
