Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
creation of well over a hundred national parks in the last 20 years, funded by the Global
Environmental Facility, has resulted in dispossession of Karen and Hmong villagers. 29
The list goes on. Globally, the amount of land under conservation protection has doubled
since 1990, and now covers some 12 per cent of all the world's land. The number of conser-
vation refugees is variously estimated at between 5 million and 14 million people. In 2004,
at a meeting of the International Forum on Indigenous Mapping in Vancouver, all two hun-
dred delegates signed a declaration stating that the 'activities of conservation organizations
now represent the single biggest threat to the integrity of indigenous lands.' 30
Similar issues have arisen in the debate surrounding a conflict taking place between
hunters and greens in the developed world. The initial aim of the moratorium on whaling
was (quite rightly) to reverse the damage to populations of great whales caused by indus-
trial fishing fleets in the middle decades of the 20th century. But when, in the early 1990s,
it was confirmed that populations of Minke whales and some other smaller species which
were the target of traditional local fisheries were perfectly healthy, the anti-whaling lobby
had to change its tune. The British Minister of Agriculture, John Gummer was forced to
switch his argument from one of ecology to another of humane killing. 'The Whale' moved
from being an endangered species (in fact about 75 species) to a symbol of endangered
Nature at the mercy of Man, or as Arne Kalland has it, a totem:
The whales have become models for us to emulate, and people do not eat their
teachers and models, at least not in the Western urban world. Whalemeat has to be-
come taboo, and eating it becomes a barbarous act close to cannibalism. Whales are
taking on the characteristics of a totem - as found among the Aborigines and Indians
in North America. But unlike traditional totemic societies … and unlike the Hindus
who in no way try to impose the prohibitions of killing and eating cows on the rest of
mankind, whale protectionists try to make the prohibition universal. In their zeal they
continue a form of Western cultural imperialism, initiated by Christian missionaries. 31
There is nothing wrong with totems and taboos. White city dwellers who have never
been whaling or even fishing in their life have just as much right to refuse whale meat as
have overfed Indian babus to refuse cow meat. The licence given to the Japanese to hunt
whales for transparently bogus 'scientific' reasons is on the same level of tacit hypocrisy
as the derogation that allows Untouchables to eat beef. But it is not normally done for one
religion or culture to impose its taboos on another, and here the whale-savers transgress. To
the extent that they campaign against whaling on humane grounds, WWF, Greenpeace, Sea
Shepherd and the like are no longer protectors of the environment, but have set themselves
up as the world's ethical policemen. And as totem becomes fetish, and fetish becomes com-
modity, they cash in on the process. Here is the view of a former Norwegian whaling skip-
 
 
 
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