Comments dragonflygraphics has made

warping the meaning of conservation

I love it, an "aid"  package containing condoms and viagra. What about women all over the world who want birth control and can't afford it? Why is that not in the package? THAT, of course, is different--somehow "against nature".

I thought everyone was concerned about population and yet, the reality is that men should have sex until they're dead and women should "control themselves" and stop "getting" pregnant.

The framing of this as being for the natural world is totally strange to me.

First, it is promoting a pharmaceutical drug manufactured by a huge company that is destroying enormous amounts of animals and plants by its very existence.

Second, it is condoning and even promoting sexism by encouraging men to feel free to have sex forever while withholding birth control from women, which should be a much larger priority. True, birth control pills are pharmaceutical drugs as well, but no one is claiming to be saving the turtles by giving women more control over how large their family is.

Third, it is warping the meaning of "conservation". How is it "conservation" to add to the growing corporation that manufactures Viagra? How is it "conservation" to continue throwing western solutions to communities who actually were fine and in balance before westernization screwed them up? How is it "conservation" to laugh and hand out viagra to men while leaving women to the task of bearing children they may not want to have? How is it "conservation" to ignore the entire rest of the web of life and say "if we can get everyone on viagra then no one will kill a sea turtle anymore." Wow! Problem solved! This is a totally ridiculous "solution".

How about putting that money and energy where it belongs: helping communities in the third world restore their old ways of life that worked fine for thousands of years until western "solutions" sent them into poverty. There are plenty of organizations that empower people in the third world to bring back a respectful relationship with themselves, each other, their community, and the earth.

The only real conservation efforts that I can see are organizations like the Greenbelt Movement in Kenya and the Landless Worker's Movement in Brazil, who are making huge strides in restoring OVERALL balance. There are lot of others worldwide and they could always use more funding since apparently there is all this extra money laying around for saving the planet.On How a little blue pill could get big results -- in species conservation, we mean posted 4 years, 8 months ago 4 Responses