<
https://gizmodo.com/the-war-on-poaching-has-gone-full-tech-dystopia-and-it-may-not-be-working-2000727598>
"Forget khaki shorts and binoculars: Modern wildlife conservation has morphed
into something that looks less like protecting elephants and more like a video
game, although with more real-world consequences. With AI-powered surveillance
systems, military drones circling over national parks, ex-special forces
contractors hunting poachers, and vast satellite imagery, the old safari ranger
clichés are all at play. This is the 21st-century battleground for endangered
species, which often goes unnoticed by those normally concerned about
biodiversity as we race through the Sixth Extinction.
Conservation has rebranded itself as a “crisis discipline” over the years,
where every decision feels like defusing a bomb with seconds on the clock.
Species extinctions loom, so much of the industry has embraced a scorched-earth
mentality: deploy counter-insurgency tactics borrowed from Iraq and
Afghanistan, militarize rangers into paramilitary units, and turn African
wilderness into monitored conflict zones. Organizations like the
non-governmental African Parks now manage a staggering 2,000-strong ranger
force across the continent—a private army bigger than some nations’ militaries,
as
Mongabay recently reported.
But green militarization isn’t just dystopian theater. Human rights abuses are
often reported, community privacy is sacrificed for mass surveillance, and
local populations who are already marginalized by colonial-era conservation
policies face violent enforcement. Meanwhile, the root causes of poaching,
including crushing poverty, land dispossession, and historical injustice, can
be sidelined in many cases. This enforcement-first approach swallowed up
millions of U.S. international conservation dollars as late as 2018, and
experts now warn that the recent, abrupt elimination of foreign aid pipelines
since the Trump administration obliterated them will create a dangerous vacuum
increasingly filled by unaccountable private sector and NGO actors."
Via Joyce Donahue.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
