Central government authorities have been busy working with and on behalf of radical NGOs for 40 years issuing dire warnings about imminent extinction of large predators (called "Charismatic Megafauna") as justification to declare them "endangered", "threatened" and "of concern". This has resulted in federal programs that have stolen authority and jurisdiction over these animals from state governments in the US, provincial governments in Canada, and national governments in the EU.
The result of all this "protection" and power usurpation has been the emergence of a "shadow" world government bureaucracy at the UN and CITES using "convention" authorities to, in harmony with central government bureaucrats and NGO lobbyists, constrict and eliminate sustainable management and use practices from hunting, and forest/grassland management to commercial and sport fishery revenue generation from sustainable resource use like ivory products, taxidermy, guiding and license revenue to pay for management and benefit local communities. This has faux "management" has been based on "science" that is little more than NGO propaganda and urban fantasies birthed in urban schools from "scientists" dependent on grants and other emoluments like gravitas, tenure, and retirement.
Finally, "large" and small media outlets and reporters are "in the pockets" of NGOs and bureaucrats that do not want any renewable natural resource management, e.g., forest fire prevention like fuel control, i.e., logging, rural road construction and maintenance for firefighting, or rural economic benefit from logging, wildlife management, grazing either on public or private land, fishery management on the high seas, in littoral zones or in fresh waters.
For 40 years this has been a big city, big government political game for the benefit of politicians and bureaucrats running about with NGOs crying "the sky is falling!" There has been no local participation or buy-in. Now we have the World Economic Forum (WEF) somehow emerging over (?) the UN and CITES as the big player in all of this "environmental" and "climate Change" "protection" (not management) of:
Historic behaviours, magnitudes of historic losses, and especially the behavioural responses and "new" habits by habituating large predators when food or challenges arise are simply "pooh-pooed" by arrogant reporters and "scientists" fond of the phrases, "they never do… or they always…" And our modern world is full of wishful gullibility in these matters.
Why is this happening? Aren't these people all good-hearted and rightly concerned? Each political level from the WEF and CITES on down to the central governments is composed of folks with enormous personal stakes (salaries, promotions, gravitas, bonuses, etc.) in this scenario. The same goes for the media, politicians hungry for donations, teachers and their unions, and urban voting blocs with no "dog in the fight" when new laws and regulations further harm rural people and their very existence.
My answer to "Why" is that there has been (since the 1970s) a radical worldwide revolution that essentially calls for bigger government while rejecting the past including sustainable management and sustainable use of renewable natural resources.
NGOs and bureaucrats formed alliances to appear to be "saving the world" by growing government and establishing radical agendas. They will never have "enough" government control. There will never be "enough" wilderness or sanctuaries. Uses from sustainable hunting and fishing to logging, grazing and commerce in renewable natural resources are all bad and will be eliminated.
WEF wants to shut down Dutch farms while lecturing about eating insects. CITES wants more and bigger killer sharks in littoral zones. The UN works with UN elites to shut down trophy shipments. Urban elites donate millions to shut down fur products and ivory commerce. US Fish and Wildlife permits the killing of eagles by wind turbines as dead whales wash ashore from turbine site explorations. US Forest Service eradicates logging and roads at quickly as they can afford it. US Bureau of Land Management is proposing to not only keep eradicating grazing permits but to lease public land to the very NGOs that want to close it down to everyone else.
Without local buy-in, this war on rural America will result in fewer to none large predators in tomorrow's America. Mark my words.
Article reprinted with permission from the IWMC – World Conservation Trust.
