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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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Entire television channels broadcast the wonders of the natural world. To gain viewers and sell ads, they rely on lions hauling down zebras, aerial tracking shots of the icy grandeur of Antarctica or more prosaic film of a bear ambling through the woods. So should the media pay for nature conservation?
That's the question four British scientists asked, seriously, in a recent issue of the journal Science. Given the success of channels like Animal Planet, shows like Planet Earth and even films like March of the Penguins, big media makes big money from nature. Do they then have an obligation to re-invest some of their profit on the nature that provided the "ecosystem service" of existing to be filmed?
The researchers suggest setting up trusts that would hold payments from media companies on a per viewer or per DVD basis. The trusts would then invest in preserving the natural world, though selecting trustworthy trustees might prove a challenge.
Of course, that means we viewers would have to pay more to watch African wild dogs roaming free through Botswana. But wouldn't it feel good to know that just by watching a show about nature you are also helping to conserve it?
—David Biello
[The above text is a transcript of this podcast.]
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5 Comments
Add CommentThis has corruption written all over it. There are so many reasons why this is a bad idea.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is a surprisingly capitalist point of view for conservationists to take; it presumes that Nature manufactures and offers "products" which we "consume", expecting "payment", and that we are in default for at least millennia of such payment. It's so nice of them to offer their services as middlemen to handle those payments. I wonder what "service charges" they will expect to "earn" for their efforts?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWill they also handle complaints from humans about defective "products" like food items that have to be cooked or chemically treated before consumption, or will we get a "value added" break for the work done on the raw materials before we use them?
Will they handle lawsuits against Nature for harm done by dangerous "products" like tsetse flies and the diseases they carry?
How about lawsuits against Nature for maintaining a "hostile workplace"? Between mass extinctions, volcanoes, non-AGW climatic shifts (if the middlemen will admit such things exist), and other environmental hazards our species has survived in the last million years or so, I expect such litigation to go on for a very long time. If Nature loses these suits, who will pay us?
I thought the payment "Nature" got from these shows is the free publicity. When some kid watches a polar bear cub and its mother trying desperately to survive rapidly shrinking ice flows, maybe that kid will start trying to conserve energy to help reduce CO2 emissions. Maybe when some adult watches a nature show and sees some beautiful panoramic scenery of some far off ecosystem, that person would feel more inclined to protect that ecosystem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen people identify with an animal or a place, it makes it much harder for them to harm that animal or place.
Just take a look at Bambi.
Question:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShould the Media Pay for victim compensation?
Given the profits made from filming and reporting on wars, can a scheme be worked out to pay for this ecosystem service?
Entire television channels broadcast the horrors of war. To gain viewers and sell ads, they rely on innocent victims being bombarded and maimed, aerial tracking shots of the icy grandeur of death at a distance, or more prosaic film of a victim dying in a relative's arms. So should the media pay compensation to the victims of war?
Answer:
No, it is not only the media who should pay victim compensation.
In my opinion, it is the collective obligation of governments, their corporations, and their citizens who should pay a monetary compensation proportional to their involvement in war. Take Iraq for example, the most conservative estimates are of over 100,000 Iraqis killed of which the vast majority are innocent civilian deaths and without the war these deaths would not have occurred, so it is us who owe the victims compensation and not only the media (and if in any way one believes that that war made them safer, then only the more reason to pay compensation)
Demand nature documentaries fund conservation, are you whacked? If they choose to voluntarily, that's great. If they merely bring awareness to the urban dwellers and reap profits while responsibly filming wild places, that's great too. Personally, I think that humanity needs to start conserving more wild places where we live and not just the wastes of Alaska, Antarctica, mountaintops, and swamps.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSee: http://5050by2150.wordpress.com