The Last of the Lions - Recently, CNN published an article on their website which asked, "Are we Seeing the Last of the Lions?" The author, Dereck Joubert, suggests that African lions may be on the verge of extinction. In the past 50 years, he says, lion populations have fallen from about 450,000 to 20,000. Human-lion conflict, Joubert suggests, are driving lion populations to extinction levels, a trend that will ultimately continue unless drastic action is taken. Should the lions die out, the grave warnings go, the results could be formidable. Economic collapse for a region based around foreign nature tourism, ecological collapse as the local eco-system breaks down without apex predators, and spiritual collapse for a people intimately tied to the land and the wildlife who inhabit it.
The problem is, though, that this article ignores some essential facts, and repeats what's become not only a common Western-centric environmental "line" over the past 150 years, but also represents a form of eco-colonialism. Frankly, I'm not convinced the loss of top predators actually will spell ecological disaster. Furthermore, I find it similarly hard to believe that the economic benefits gained by tourism outweigh the potential development that could result from a reduction of the wild environment in favour of urbanization.
Apex predators in the now developed nations have mostly been extinct for years. In the case of Europe, wolves, lions, bears, and other creatures harmful to humanity have been reduced to extinction or near extinction levels over the course of 2,000 years of civilization building and urbanization. Surprisingly, this didn't lead to the total collapse of the ecosystems of Europe, but rather... the development of hitherto unseen levels of population densities, wealth, and societal expansion.
When wilderness areas are reduced, and are instead replaced by human-useful developments like farmlands, living spaces, industrial areas, etc, society has room to grow and expand based on its own production capabilities. Forcing African nations to forgo those benefits to protect wildlife essentially requires them to operate at the mercy of flocks of international tourists and the influx of cash they bring into the local economies.
And that's the frustrating thing that goes on here: I think in many ways the most severely developing nations, like those in Africa which play host to so many of nature's remaining mega-fauna, are essentially being forced to forgo their own development. The international community of western nations, the already developed nations, are by the force of their economic influence reinforcing the east-west, developed-undeveloped paradigm. Specifically, tripe articles like this inspire an insipidly sentimental protectionist attitude in the general populace, who then, through their wildlife tourism and general political influence, bring about policies in their home nations, and in developing nations that protect the wildlife there at the expense of development.
So countries in Africa and and parts of central and east Asia can't develop, because they're being told by westerners, coming from countries that long ago killed off all their big, impressive animals, that they can't develop. That they have to remain essentially giant game parks, so that wealthy westerners can come ooh and ah over the magnificent lion, while the natives play as guides and live off dollars a day. Those same westerners can then go home and complain about how their tax dollars are once again being sent in foreign aid to support undeveloped nations abroad. Like industrialisation in the face of recent environmental issues, countries that are trying to develop are being told they don't have that right, because of the harm it'll do to the planet... by countries that did the exact same thing 100 years ago, and have spent the last 100 years enjoying the benefits of just such a process.
I'm not saying the lion isn't going extinct. It certainly seems like it is. And I'm not saying the lion should be going extinct, it's a magnificent animal, and probably well worth protecting. But I am saying it's hypocritical and frustratingly eco-colonial for western nations (and the media of those nations) to insist it's the responsibility of undeveloped nations to protect those animals, especially when the costs are so high to those developing nations, and when the imposing developed nations have such a poor track record of their own.
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