In a message dated 3/3/1999 4:22:27 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
<< I want to see Nicole give an informed defence of Hutu rebel Gorilla
protection, rather than the more likely scenario that the Gorillas have been
systematically slaughtered for meat. Gorilla welfare or guerilla warfare?
a bride's blood does not secure a Gorilla's life
tough love is true love, Nicole XXX - Chris >>
Tough? Or False? There is a difference. The hutu rebels aren't worried about
protecting gorillas - these are about human lives, human issues - hellooooooo
there are people in Uganda.
The more likely scenario is the massive death and violence and
political/social turmoil in the area. That is the reality. For you? Eating
gorillas is the issue?
Sorry Chris, but my preeminent focus on such issues is with the social and
political conditions of the people of that region. When the people are living
in a stable situation, the environment and all in it will be secure. Not
secured by outside environmentalists, but secured by the people who lived for
a way long time with the gorillas in the mist living fine in the mist.
There is no way that the gorillas will be truly okay if the people are not -
even if some rebel environmentalists from the west swoop down to stage a
military assault on the people to keep them away from the gorillas and the
land of the gorillas.
The Gorillas only became an issue when europeans decided to track them - and
place prices on their heads which easily tempted people trying to feed their
families. Those people were not living off of gorilla meat, prior to that -
nor were they tracking down gorillas and harassing them with tours, pictures
and strange women living with them. As with any poor place, if people find
something to be a commodity which will bring income from foreigners with money
and the social situation is hard enough, everything and everyone gets sold.
And foreign tourists take well advantage of that fact. Everything gets eaten
too, even when they were not eaten before. Although we find in the west people
eat things as delicacies and exotic, in poor areas people eat what they can,
when they can to survive. For those of us with constantly full bellies and
access to food, the money to buy it, we can chant all we like, but reality
supercedes our self-indulgent idealisms about how things should be done.
Sorry, please no lectures on the conditions in those countries. Forget tough
love and stick to tough reality. Those people in those countries can't spend
the time we can ranting via email about such issues - they have to actually
live them.
As "environmentalists" we have to all prevent going off into flights of fancy
about saving the animals of the world, without first packing our heads firmly
with reality.
Nicole
