Catching up on reading this morning, I came across a couple of stories of interest in relation to recent blog posts.
- Killing some cuddly animals legally may be the only way to stop all of them being killed illegally, according to the Babbage blog at the Economist. The potential arguments around this have the potential to make the recent controversy over hunting polar bears a stroll in the park. Just because there are strong arguments why a trading ban will not work, that does not mean that lifting it and regulating the trade instead will save the rhino and tiger, so I suspect it will be a brave politician who agrees to legalise such a trade. Nonetheless, I think, these are definitely the right questions to ask, for the present strategy appears to be largely failing.
- The Guyanese national REDD initiative appears to be the complete opposite of the lack of progress elsewhere, I recently blogged about. Instead REDD in Guyana, and Norwegian support for it seems to have been initiated out of nothing by politicians keen to make an impact. The anti-REDD REDD Monitor implies such lack of context is in itself a bad thing, but I am not so sure. Whilst I imagine this start-from-a-vacuum has not been without its challenges, it seems much better to have strong political leadership searching for technical support to fill in the gaps, than the total lack of political interest that applies in some other countries. Leaders are supposed to lead!
It will be interesting to see how both situations develop in coming months and years.
Hat tip for both stories: Mike Shanahan at IIED
Bottom Up Thinking 