UN Great Apes Survival Summit: IAPF’s Damien Mander – Extreme Conservation

Our generation is losing the World Wildlife War, on behalf of all those who have fought before us. We will be defeated, unless we are empowered to do things differently and stop shifting the furniture around with the same tired approaches, expecting different outcomes.

Collectively, we conservationist’s function as an industry perpetually trapped in 2nd gear. Mother Nature has been forced onto the backseat, for the benefit of Mankind’s forward march. We battle for the leftover scraps of a humanitarian feast as our species continually defies natures self-regulating systems in its insatiable drive to dominate the Earth. Is there a real long-term solution to protecting what the majority deems a lesser important wellbeing — the heart and lungs of the planet?

It is deemed acceptable for militaries to protect our national interests and police to protect our local interests, but when it comes to protecting natural interests we have to walk on eggshells – not this time: