Estimating the total number of wild animals in a particular location or country has always been challenging. Still, better data on wild animal numbers are needed to recognize changes, identify the causes, and what might be done to address such changes. The Living Planet Report...
In May, WellBeing News published an article alerting readers to the Dasgupta Review (Review) publication addressing the economics of biodiversity. We suggested that the Review could become a classic along with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring but have just come across a significant critique of the...
In 2018, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP – headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya) signed a two-year agreement with a Kenyan animal protection group, the Africa Network for Animal Welfare (ANAW – founded in 2006), that included a stipulation that ANAW should organize animal welfare conferences...
South Africa occupies an ecologically strategic position in the world. Like China, it has rich biodiversity and has been building its reputation as a favorite wildlife tourist destination. But it has also attracted its share of wildlife traders, poachers, and trophy hunters[1]. South Africa’s own...
How important is global biodiversity and the interactions and interdependencies of all life for the well-being of people, animals and the environment? Do these interdependencies among all life forms lead to the logical conclusion that “biodiversity” is important (or even essential) to understand and protect?...
Around 20-25,000 years ago, the earth was in the grip of an Ice Age. The sea level was around 400 foot lower than it is today, global rainfall was lower and approximately a quarter of the earth’s surface was covered in ice. The earth then...
Every now and again, a publication or report comes along that changes how we think about life. In the animal space, Ruth Harrison’s Animal Machines (1964) was such a publication. In the environmental space, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) and the Club of Rome’s Limits...
This past month, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) issued a 168-page publication entitled Making Peace with Nature. The UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, comments in a Foreword that “Humanity is waging war on nature” and “Making peace with nature is the defining task of the...
In an earlier ‘Letter from the President’ in WellBeing News (October 2020), we mentioned that the Food & Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ (FAO) has predicted that the production of animal products would have to double to meet global demand in 2050. This prediction...
A relatively recent saying, attributed to many different people, is that “prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future.” In contrast, Peter Drucker, the global management guru, is quoted as saying that “the best way to predict the future is to create it.” ...
