Word: localitis
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Dates: during 2000-2000
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...world needs ecosystems, but apparently not every ecosystem, everywhere. The genius of the market economy is that it enables a nation to buy from other places or re-create through technology some of the benefits once derived from the local habitat. The genius of nature is that ecosystems can absorb shocks and sustain damage and still rebound...
Unfortunately, no simple solution is politically simple. There's usually fierce resistance from local stakeholders to any proposal to remove a dam, no matter how small. But it's striking how, in just two or three decades, the U.S. has gone from building dams to not building dams to taking some of them down. Under serious discussion is the demolition of four brutish structures on the lower Snake River that have macerated millions of young fish...
...should--do a great deal. It's a matter of changing priorities. Plenty of money is available for scientific field studies and conferences on endangered species. But what about boots and vehicles for park personnel who protect wildlife from poachers? What about development aid to give local people economic alternatives to cutting forests and plowing over the land? That kind of funding is difficult to come...
...those funds would be a matter of endless debate. Should local communities be entitled to set the agenda, or should outside experts take control? Should limited hunting be allowed in parks, or should they be put off limits? Mistakes will be made, the landscape will keep changing, and species will still be lost, but the difficulty of the task should not lead us to abandon hope. Many of the planet's natural habitats are gone forever, but many others can be saved and in time restored...
...farms use large numbers of cheap, wild-caught fish as feed to raise fewer shrimp and fish of more lucrative varieties. And industrial-scale fish- and shrimp-aquaculture operations sometimes damage the coastlines where the facilities are located. The farms can foul the water, destroy mangroves and marshes, drive local fishers out of business and serve as breeding grounds for fish diseases. In places such as Bangladesh, Thailand and India, which grow shrimp mainly for export to richer countries, diseases and pollution usually limit a farm's life to 10 years. The companies then move and start again...