Subject: Re: Legislation in Finland [Was Re: More re Ehrlich experiment]

From: [email-masked] (Pierre A Plauzoles)
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 1996 18:54:19 GMT

In a previous article, [email-masked] (Chris Raper) says:

>On 20 Mar 1996 22:00:02 GMT, [email-masked] (Markku 
  Savela) wrote: >
>[snip]
>
>>It would be interesting to know how they will estimate the fine to
>>some land developer that accidentally destoroys hundreds of these
>>(like drying out some marshland and getting rid of _Lopinga achine_
>>habitat).
>>
>>With few exceptions (for example Apollos, achine), the above species
>>appear on a very limited area, and restrictions are very
>>understandable. However, one might ask if just protecting those sites
>>would be a better and clearer strategy?
>
>You are right of course. If the habitats are there in sufficient
>numbers most species would be unaffected by collecting. Predation is
>just the final 'nail in the coffin' of a population.
>
>I don't know about Finland but in the UK we have 'Sites of Special
>Scientific Interest' (SSSI) which are supposed to be the highest level
>of protection the law can give. 
>
>In reality what happens is that private landowners are prevented from
>doing anything that wavers from the 'management plan' for the reserve
>(even if the plan is out of date) because they can be fined. While big
>buisiness or government (who are much more powerfull)  can buy the
>land and destroy the site if they can prove that a 'cost-benefit
>analysis' shows that the new road/factory/shopping center/coal mine is
>of more value than the wildlife in question.
>
>Ironically, because no ordinary person would want to buy a SSSI
>(because they can't do anything with it) the land has no monetary
>value. This means that if the government wants to build a road or
>extract coal it is _far_ cheeper to do it on a SSSI (which they can
>un-designate and buy for next to nothing) than to buy farm land which
>is quite valuable.
>
>This is all happening at Newbury and Selar where SSSIs and Lep.
>colonies are being (have been) destroyed with government approval
>purely for human convenience.
>
>It is the same old problem - government and big buisiness have _power_
>and can do what they like (as long as they throw an excuse at the
>electorate) while the ordinary person who has _very_ little power is
>punished and made a scapegoat.
>
>Am I right - or is it just another case of Chris being old and cynical
>again? ;-)

Chris,

What you just said is quite right, so much so, in fact, that this is the 
very stuff the expressions "hit the nail on the head" and "right on the 
money" were invented for.  "Old and cynical" my foot!

It is the likes of a certain self-appointed "environmental consultant" 
and his self-righteous bullheadedness (maybe this man has the education 
to know what he is talking about- I wouldn't know that - but the 
political twist he puts on everything he says immediately and completely 
decimates what good there is in the material he puts out) that make the 
bureaucrats see red and the remainder of the ecological community suffer 
(because the bureaucrats don't have the natural science education to know 
any better), to say nothing of the non-human species we try to save from 
the devastation some of our fellow humans foist upon them.  Much as these 
latter may feel they are right, they are so full of the own ego they 
can't even see the tips of their own noses because they are blinded by 
their short-sightedness.  In fact, so short-sighted are these people that 
they can only focus on themselves.  You know of whom I speak - and the 
list of their names does *not* include NWJ.

-- 
Pierre Plauzoles   [email-masked]
Canoga Park, California