This is a the first posting on an experimental blog site, where I hope to be able to encourage threads of conversation that cross the divide between, what we from the inside refer to as, the biodiversity sector and the mainstreams of society. My starting point is to say that biodiversity, as ungainly and problematic as the word is, is pretty well at the centre of human life on planet Earth.... and becoming frighteningly more central as it erodes and takes with it the functioning ecosystems that provide the services that keep us alive.
This site, if successful in it's purpsose, will articulate some of the conversations, insights and opinions that are generated within the biodiversity sector, and will make them available for scrutiny and comment by interested mainstreamers. I am hoping to use video as a medium to carry some of the messages on this blog (or with links to You Tube), In doing so, it will hopefully contribute to finding human resolve for addressing the addressable, and to provide opportunity for speaking wisely and listening attentively across the (imagined?) divide.
Unfotunately, a vehicle like this is unlikely to reach deep into the mainstream of society, where poverty and exclusion are monstrous barriers to participation in debate and idea sharing. Ironically our discussion will be happening between strata of society that are consuming natural resources at a rate three or four times greater than planet Earth can sustain them. Surely there are some very real lessons to be learned from people who know how to do with less? Democracy and equity have everything to do with sustainability.
The field is wide open, and the stakes are high. Can the ingenuity and imagination of Homo technologicus save the day, or do we have to dig deep into our faded memories woven in the fabric of life as H. ecologicus?
George Davis,
serving the SANBI mandate in a personal capacity
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