India's choice between the poor and its natural parks

[dArKeR]

The reasons for India's shrinking forest cover which endangers wildlife and people's livelihoods can be easily seen at Rajaji National Park as men cut trees in the gaze of wardens.

An army of men from a nomadic tribe who have made the national park home hack at trees with axes in a bid to get fuel for cooking and money from selling the timber -- within walking distance of the people hired to guard the trees.

"It's very difficult to stop them because they are dependent on the forest, and besides we have orders from the National Human Rights Commission to provide them grazing rights until their relocation," park director G.S. Pande says.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2005/04/30/2003252587

Maybe there wouldn't be so many poor if the government wasn't so corrupt as Bush type families embezzle? What if foreign corporations paid the people of India a living wage?

[chlamor]

1. Poverty is not the problem

Wealth is the problem. Ecological devastation and human poverty are its offspring. Those in that region who were pushed off their land did quite well before the money economy entered. the living wage admirable as it is is merely an egalitarian way of using too much. We need entirely different modes.

[Technowitch]

2. Overpopulation is another problem

It isn't just 'wealth' in my opinion.

The planet Earth is only a zero-sum game if you never think beyond the edge of the atmosphere. The solar system alone is full of boundless energy (solar), resources -- and yes, even petrochemicals.

All we have to do is reach high enough.

Just my opinion.

[chlamor]

3. Yes and no and then yes again

A salient fact- 1.7% of the population uses apprxly. 82% of the worlds resources. An example of this is the point that in just one week of NYC rush hour transit more energy is used than the entire continent of Africa will use for EVERY SINGLE thing done in their lives for a full year.

Overpopulation IS a problem but comes in third in my view to gluttonous consumption (wealth) and Militarism (US Navy uses 16% of worlds diesel fuel per year).

I think we need to look inward and recognize we are already in space and embrace the beauty of this red dirt world.

BTW sorry about the Peak oil blitz in Editorials was trying to be overly thematic.

In every language I have had translated the word 'human' means 'soil being' more or less.

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