Comments Ed Ayres has made

Worldwatch Kerfuffle

The item "Worldwatch Kerfuffle" (Nov. 23), which suggests that I was forced into "fleeing the coop" as editor of World Watch magazine, contains serious distortions.  My retirement, which is effective November 30, has nothing to do with the firestorm resulting from Mac Chapin's "Challenge to Conservationists" in the November/December issue.  I gave two months' notice of my forthcoming retirement in a meeting I had with the Worldwatch president, Chris Flavin, on September 30--long before he saw the article.  And regardless whether anyone at Worldwatch Institute may later have had "cold feet" about publishing this piece, I think we all agreed in the end that it was the right thing to do.  If we had capitulated to the pressure put on us by one of the organizations examined by Chapin, which got hold of a pre-publication draft of the article and made a not-very-subtle attempt to have us kill it, Lisa Hymas might have had reason to speak of the "irony" of Worldwatch being intimidated by fear of offending its funders--but we did not kill it.  The "big three" international conservation organizations are all squirming now, but they are also taking the issues raised by the article to heart.  Ultimately, their missions and ours are in accord. The interdependent causes of biodiversity conservation and indigenous rights and livelihoods will get a great boost from the debate this article has stimulated, and it's a shame to see that prospect clouded by irresponsible rumor-mongering, especially in such a reputable forum as Grist.

Ed Ayres
Editor, World Watch  
On Worldwatch kerfuffle posted 5 years ago 4 Responses