La víctima es el oso
Por Pilar Rahola (LA VANGUARDIA, 29/10/08):
Según parece Hvala significa “gracias” en esloveno. Aunque dudo mucho que la osa que estos días es perseguida, con profusión de medios, por el Pirineo catalán, tenga demasiados motivos para dar las gracias a los seres humanos. En realidad, ¿puede darlas algún animal? El ser humano se ha convertido en una especie de virus brutalmente agresivo y violento, que destruye todo a su paso, entorno, vida, ecosistema… Nuestra capacidad de destrucción de la biodiversidad va pareja a nuestra falta absoluta de conciencia de lo que ello significa, y así vamos caminando por el planeta, dilapidando el…
Here be dragonflies - chugging in their hundreds
By Simon Barnes (THE TIMES, 13/09/08):
I went birding this week: I ended up dragoning. I took a stroll around the RSPB’s lovely North Warren nature reserve near Aldeburgh and - well, I didn’t expect to see much, in terms of birds, tell you the truth, a little early for winter, a little late for summer. But it’s never a bad idea to take a nice walk in a nice place, so off I went.
And the place was alive with dragonflies. I don’t mean a few dozen: I mean hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. Every step I walked, there were dragonflies in…
Nature superior to Man? What green twaddle
By Matthew Parris (THE TIMES, 30/08/08):
Sitting on a log, in a clearing by the banks of the River Matamata close to where it flows into the Amazon, Sara Bennett was encircled by her audience. This audience, too, sat on logs. We were composed of men and monkeys. The human contingent were my six travelling companions and I. The monkeys - well, they too had names, but I could no more name them than name the half-dozen different monkey species they came from.
The reddish-furred monkey in Dr Bennett’s arms was a female howler monkey: this I did recognise - by the fearsome,…
Espinoso asunto
Por Rafael Iturriaga Nieva, consejero del Tribunal Vasco de Cuentas Públicas (EL CORREO DIGITAL, 29/08/08):
A lo largo del mes de agosto han venido sucediéndose las noticias sobre un conflicto pesquero entre Cantabria y el País Vasco. En lo dicho por unos y por otros se echa de menos algún dato referente a la legalidad aplicable. Al fin y al cabo, más allá de las cuestiones técnicas o de los intereses afectados, se trata de una actuación de los poderes públicos.
Es una lástima que circulen conceptos como «veto a los pesqueros cántabros en las aguas interiores vascas» (EL CORREO, 23-8-08) sin…
What Binti Jua Knew
By Barbara J. King, a professor of anthropology at the College of William and Mary and the author of Evolving God: A Provocative View on the Origins of Religion. See also Why They’re Human Rights (THE WASHINGTON POST, 15/08/08):
A toddler falls over a railing, 24 feet down, into the gorilla enclosure of the Brookfield Zoo outside Chicago. There he lies, unconscious, among seven apes, some with poundage and power exceeding that of an adult man. As one of them approaches the boy, onlookers tense.
But Binti Jua, an 8-year-old female gorilla, picks up the boy, and, carrying him along with her own…
En primera línea
Por Carlos Manuel Duarte Quesada, profesor de investigación del CSIC, presidente de la Sociedad Americana de Limnología y Oceanografía (ASLO) y Premio Nacional de Investigación en Recursos Naturales en 2007 (EL PAÍS, 12/08/08):
Anticipando un día caluroso, se había levantado pronto para recorrer las rocas del litoral en busca de marisco aprovechando el frescor de las primeras horas del día y la bajamar. Al alcanzar la orilla del mar se sentó sobre sus talones y se dejó invadir por el sonido de las olas que acariciaban la suave pendiente de la playa en su devenir, humedeciéndola en un juego de cambiantes…
Los derechos de monos y humanos / Of great apes and men
Por Peter Singer, profesor de Bioética en la Universidad de Princeton. Traducción de María Luisa Rodríguez Tapia (EL PAÍS/THE GUARDIAN, 11/08/08):
El 25 de junio, en una votación histórica, la Comisión de Medio Ambiente, Agricultura y Pesca del Parlamento español declaró su apoyo al Proyecto Gran Simio, una propuesta para dar derecho a la vida y la libertad y proteger de la tortura a nuestros familiares no humanos más próximos: chimpancés, chimpancés pigmeos, gorilas y orangutanes. Otros países, como Nueva Zelanda y el Reino Unido, han tomado medidas para proteger a los grandes simios de los experimentos dañinos, pero ningún parlamento…
Why They’re Human Rights
By Russell Paul La Valle, a freelance writer in New Paltz, N.Y. (THE WASHINGTON POST, 27/07/08):
In Spain, a funny thing is happening on the way to the circus — all of the monkeys are disappearing.
At least, that is what a group of legislators on an environmental committee is hoping will happen, now that parliament is considering a resolution to grant certain human rights to “our nonhuman brothers” — great apes, gorillas, bonobos, chimpanzees and orangutans. The measure has broad support and, barring the unexpected, is likely to become law within a year. After enactment, harmful experimentation on apes, as well…
La ecología, otra gran víctima de la crisis
Por Paul Kennedy, director del Instituto de Estudios sobre Seguridad Internacional de Yale. Traducción de María Luisa Rodríguez Tapia (EL PAÍS, 22/07/08):
Hay muchos perdedores en nuestro nuevo mundo de gasolina y alimentos caros: los pobres en casi todas partes, las clases medias bajas, las compañías aéreas, las empresas de importación de alimentos… Y ahora aparece una nueva víctima: el sueño ecologista de conseguir un mundo más sostenible, equilibrado y equitativo. Esa visión de una Tierra armoniosa está amenazada por todas partes.
A algunos puede extrañarles esta conclusión. ¿Acaso los elevados precios del petróleo no recortan nuestras costumbres gastadoras? ¿No es positivo…
Chimps Aren’t Chumps
By Steve Ross, the supervisor of behavioral and cognitive research at the Lester Fisher Center for the Study and Conservation of Apes at the Lincoln Park Zoo (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 21/07/08):
You see it on greeting cards and in countless TV programs and commercials: the exaggerated grin on the face of a young chimpanzee, often one that’s wearing sunglasses or a grass skirt. It’s about as common a ploy for laughs as a pie in the face. Generations have been amused by the antics of Bonzo, J. Fred Muggs, Zippy and, more recently, the business-suited chimps of Careerbuilder.com. A chimpanzee…
Of great apes and men
By Peter Singer, professor of bioethics at Princeton University and author of Animal Liberation (THE GUARDIAN, 18/07/08):
In a historic vote last month the Spanish parliament’s commission for the environment, agriculture, and fisheries declared its support for The Great Ape Project - a proposal to grant rights to life, liberty, and protection from torture to our closest nonhuman relatives: chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and orang-utans. Other countries, such as New Zealand and the UK, have taken steps to protect great apes, but no national parliament has declared that any animal could be a person with rights.
Keeping great apes in captivity will be allowed…
¿Deben gozar los grandes simios de derechos humanos?
Por Felipe González Armesto, catedrático de Historia en la Universidad de Tufts (Boston, EEUU). Su última obra publicada es Américo. El hombre que dio su nombre a un continente (EL MUNDO, 14/07/08):
El gran problema de nuestro mundo -fuente de todos los demás- es el desequilibrio del progreso. Hemos adelantado en todo -ciencia, medicina, tecnología- menos en inteligencia y moralidad. Nuestro único logro moral ha sido extender nuestro concepto de lo humano hasta incluir a gente de todas las razas y culturas del mundo. La propuesta de adhesión al Proyecto Gran Simio sugiere un posible paso más: la ampliación de nuestra…
Rumsfeld and the bees
By Slavoj Zizek, international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities (THE GUARDIAN, 28/06/08):
For the past two years, a mysterious disease has been wiping out honeybees in the US and Europe. This catastrophe could have a devastating effect on our food supply: about a third of the human diet comes from insect-pollinated plants, and the honeybee is responsible for 80% of that pollination. This is how one should imagine a possible global catastrophe: no big bang, just a small-level interruption with devastating global consequences.
There is an air of mystery to this mass death. Although the same thing is happening…
Fauna y fenómenos extraños
Por Mario Sáenz de Buruaga, Dtor. De Consultoría de Recursos Naturales S.L. (EL CORREO DIGITAL, 04/06/08):
A menudo, los medios de información, fundamentalmente de prensa diaria y de televisión, se hacen eco de episodios protagonizados por la fauna que, en principio, son trasladados a la opinión pública como noticias prácticamente insólitas. En los últimos meses, lobos, buitres, estorninos, topillos, conejos han sido motivo, y aún lo son, de una cascada de noticias expuestas en esos medios con más o menos fidelidad a lo que realmente sucede.
Es con especies que compiten con el hombre por un recurso alimenticio o con aquéllas que…
Humans are the danger
By Rod Stewart, the director of Sharkwater (THE GUARDIAN, 24/05/08):
Sharks are in serious trouble. Research this week has revealed that more than half the world’s ocean-going sharks face extinction in the near future. I first became aware of their plight in 1999, on an assignment in the Galapagos Islands. Instead of photographing them, I wound up cutting dying sharks from illegal long lines. The experience led me to investigate the huge demand for sharks - even in the best-protected national parks on earth.
The simple reason is shark fin soup. Through much of Asia, this is a symbol of wealth, served…
Ginebra: se compra basura
Por Félix de Azúa, escritor (EL PAÍS, 10/03/08):
Me resisto a creer que no haya en español una palabra capaz de definir ese temblor que asalta al viajero y que los franceses llaman dépaysement, extrañamiento del país, pérdida del lugar, lejanía de la patria, algo similar a lo que se solía describir con el castizo “caérsele a uno el pelo de la dehesa”. Aunque me parece que tampoco la conocen los ingleses, como si sólo los franceses se sintieran raros al salir de casa y toleraran mal el abandono del cascarón. El caso es que ciertamente el viajero tiene la sensibilidad muy…
How to Handle an Invasive Species? Eat It
By Taras Bescoe, the author of the forthcoming Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 20/02/08):
Late last year, a flotilla of fluorescent jellyfish covering 10 square miles of ocean was borne by the tide into a small bay on the Irish Sea. These mauve stingers, venomous glow-in-the-dark plankton native to the Mediterranean, slipped through the mesh of aquaculture nets, stinging the 120,000 fish in Northern Ireland’s only salmon farm to death.
Closer to home, the Asian carp, which has been working its way north from the Mississippi Delta since the 1990s, is now on…
I’m proud to be a pirate
By Paul Watson. Captain Paul Watson is founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (THE GUARDIAN, 23/01/08):
Shiver me timbers, boys and girls, we is awash in a sea of pirates down here in the Southern Ocean and it’s time for a parley to do a little ’splaining on the subject. This ocean now rivals the 17th century Caribbean for reported acts of piracy. The only thing lacking is the Sea Shepherd member Orlando Bloom.Japanese whalers are accusing the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and Greenpeace crew members of being pirates. Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace are accusing the whalers of being pirates.…
Harpooned by hypocrisy
By Peter Singer, a professor of bioethics at Princeton University and the author of Animal Liberation and, with Jim Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat (THE GUARDIAN, 19/01/08):
The change in public opinion about whaling has been dramatic. Thirty years ago Australian vessels would hunt sperm whales with the government’s blessing - but just two days ago an Australian customs ship, in Antarctic waters to video Japanese whaling activities, played a key role in winning the freedom of two anti-whaling activists. The hostage crisis began when they boarded a Japanese harpoon boat on Tuesday. Because Paul Watson, the leader of the conservation…
Bearing Up
By Sarah Palin, a Republican and the governor of Alaska (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 05/01/08):
About the closest most Americans will ever get to a polar bear are those cute, cuddly animated images that smiled at us while dancing around, pitching soft drinks on TV and movie screens this holiday season.
This is unfortunate, because polar bears are magnificent animals, not cartoon characters. They are worthy of our utmost efforts to protect them and their Arctic habitat. But adding polar bears to the nation’s list of endangered species, as some are now proposing, should not be part of those efforts.
To help ensure…
