Got an email from a friend today about Greenpeace dumping some “bycatch” on the doorsteps of some politicians…
“Environmentalists, protesting over fishing, catch 11,000 fish, pile them near a major tourist attraction and put up signs saying, ‘Don’t waste
life’… Brilliant!”
In my experience there are two “camps” of environmentalist/eco-freak/animal-rights-activist/whatever. The first camp is the ducks unlimited hunter / catch-and-release fisherman / eco steward that likes to think they “keep it real”, usually by combining conservation with some form of consumption. They think they see the big picture and that’s what counts. A lot of park rangers, environmental agency officials, many biologists, etc. in that camp, perhaps even the more open-minded land developers or foresters. The second camp is Peta / lab-rescue commandos / vegans who see all sentient beings as individually having “rights” that no one else has the right to trample on. Members of the first camp would usually rather be damned to hell before being associated with the second camp. I’m a card-carrying member of the second :P but I’ve also been a member of the first, doing environmental surveys to set aside 20% of a gopher tortoise population’s land so the developer can bulldoze over the other 80%. Not by choice, but better than nothing. Working with governmental agencies and developers to find “common ground” and compromises.
Seems like Greenpeace is trying to firmly throw their hat in the ring of the first camp… distance themselves from animal-rights activists, to whom Peta has really given a bad name with all their sensationalism. An example… isn’t it cute to bite the head off a fish…
But it does sound like they’re opening themselves up to criticism, at least the way the yahoo story was spun… here’s more details, which clear it up a little bit anyway… sounds like they just took what the fishers had already pulled out of the water…
Still, to a vegan, all the answers are easy. :) All this compromise stuff is nonsense. It’s just not that hard to “have it all”, eating low on the food chain, thereby helping the individual beings AND the big environmental picture, every day. Simple and pure.
