Disappointingly Bureaucratic

Recently the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) went public with an estimate that the world would lose something like two thirds of its wild animals by the year 2020 if nothing were done to change the present development.

And that may well be so: quite apart from the well-organized gangs who poach elephants and rhinoceroses there are all those hunters who kill whatever they can get in order to sell the meat as ”bush meat” to customers who, as a rule, really do not see many other possibilities to get at least occasionally some meat to eat – Grauer’s Gorilla (= the world largest primate), Mountain Gorilla, chimpanzees, bonobos, any other primates, i.e. our close relatives, plus of course very many other rare and partly beautiful species are all JUST MEAT. This for a population which is still in the process of exploding: the impression is that south of the Sahara women are programmed (and quite possibly still being programmed, partly with the help of white missionaries) to think that they are somehow not respectable if they do not have at least something like 5 children (an attitude one can find from the Old Testament, but far from romantic), and also in South Asia things like birth control are not yet so very popular. Nor are there even the beginnings of a social security system visible which could rid people of the fear that they could end up without support in their old age if they do not have own (and surviving, even successful) children.

Well, WWF does not seem to like this state of affairs, nor do I like it. And as usual my head is producing some ideas what one might try to do about it. I went then to the address of WWF in Helsinki in hope of meeting some person(s) who might be willing to discuss these matters, or at least to give me some names to whom to turn. But, it turned out that WWF keeps itself unavailable behind some well-guarded doors, and when I finally was given the opportunity to ask at least by phone whether there were any public discussions which one could join, the answer was that there were none and that they did not either have the intention to organize any. To which I can only say that this is as bad as our government: pointing to problems but protecting themselves against outside ideas which could possibly be helpful (while the problems do not seem to go away in spite of the official efforts – IF there now are any …). Well, if somebody who reads this should have any contacts to the WWF I should ask this person to kick the WWF that they should abandon their bureaucratic habits and make themselves more accessible. So that we get at least a chance to enjoy the wild animals of the world for a while longer.