Comment: SJW Environmentalism? Or just another symptom of Dark Green?
----------------------------
Steve Brenner
Spiked
'Hey kids, let’s go and see the animals at the Oostvaardersplassen nature reserve’, is not something any Dutch parent is likely to say to their children, these days. Last winter, they might have seen park rangers shooting thousands of skeletal animals, rotting animal carcasses, and a barren landscape dotted with dead trees. Rather than a place of natural harmony, the reserve now resembles the nightmarish visions of Hieronymus Bosch. A new report by Amsterdam’s provincial government has called for fundamental changes. A petition for the reserve’s closure has been signed by over 125,000 people.
Events in the reserve this winter have attracted attention not only from concerned Dutch citizens, but also from around the world. The park has hitherto been held up as a model for rewilding – the planned introduction of plant and animal species, which are then left to develop independently of human influence. But events at Oostvaardersplassen have revealed that the misanthropic ideology that lies behind rewilding is fundamentally flawed.
The Oostvaardersplassen consists of 56 square kilometres of land reclaimed from the sea, a short drive away from Amsterdam. Originally intended as an industrial zone, it long laid undeveloped and abandoned. Under the influence of the Dutch ecologist Frans Vera, it was reinvented during the 1980s and 1990s, ostensibly as a safe haven for nature. Natural processes would be allowed to take their course and human intervention would be eliminated as much as possible. Human intervention, rewilding advocates argue, is arrogant and destructive to natural ends. As British ecologist George Monbiot argues, rewilding is the perfect antidote to ‘the Biblical doctrine of dominion’ – the destructive basis of the modern human relationship to nature.
Read more
----------------------------
Steve Brenner
Spiked
'Hey kids, let’s go and see the animals at the Oostvaardersplassen nature reserve’, is not something any Dutch parent is likely to say to their children, these days. Last winter, they might have seen park rangers shooting thousands of skeletal animals, rotting animal carcasses, and a barren landscape dotted with dead trees. Rather than a place of natural harmony, the reserve now resembles the nightmarish visions of Hieronymus Bosch. A new report by Amsterdam’s provincial government has called for fundamental changes. A petition for the reserve’s closure has been signed by over 125,000 people.
Events in the reserve this winter have attracted attention not only from concerned Dutch citizens, but also from around the world. The park has hitherto been held up as a model for rewilding – the planned introduction of plant and animal species, which are then left to develop independently of human influence. But events at Oostvaardersplassen have revealed that the misanthropic ideology that lies behind rewilding is fundamentally flawed.
The Oostvaardersplassen consists of 56 square kilometres of land reclaimed from the sea, a short drive away from Amsterdam. Originally intended as an industrial zone, it long laid undeveloped and abandoned. Under the influence of the Dutch ecologist Frans Vera, it was reinvented during the 1980s and 1990s, ostensibly as a safe haven for nature. Natural processes would be allowed to take their course and human intervention would be eliminated as much as possible. Human intervention, rewilding advocates argue, is arrogant and destructive to natural ends. As British ecologist George Monbiot argues, rewilding is the perfect antidote to ‘the Biblical doctrine of dominion’ – the destructive basis of the modern human relationship to nature.
Read more
No comments:
Post a Comment