The other "other" side

Paul Cherubini cherubini at mindspring.com
Thu Aug 3 12:49:49 EDT 2000


I wrote:

> 9 times out of 10 these"save the poor rare butterfly campaigns" involve
> habitats on very pricey parcels real estate as in this case...if one follows the
> money trail one finds the developers aren't the only ones who stand to make
> some bucks.

John Shuey responded:
 
> The original web page asked for letters of support - no money.  But
> even if it had requested money, there are several mechanisms that
> prevent the type alleged kick-backs from happening.

I was thinking about the way things are with the monarch butterfly.
I posted two examples already. In one example we saw that
a donation to the "Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary Foundation" really
doesn't go to purchase habitat where the butterflies overwinter in 
Mexico. No direct benefit to the butterflies. The money goes to fund 
administration and the research interests on a handful of professors 
and other scholars. When I say "make some bucks" I don't 
necessarily mean personal spending money. I mean
grant/donation type money that scholars need to
finance their research interests.

In the other example, "The "Butterfly Palace" conservation organization
along the central California coast, we saw how conservationists and a
professor are not interested in creating new monarch habitat for a few
hundred dollars on existing government owned land, but are VERY
interested in securing $500,000 as part of a private land acquisition deal
to, in part, finance the research interests of a professor.

People who think I'm off base should re-read the job descriptions
that universities write when they are seeking faculty members to study
insects of non-agricultural (crop damaging) importance. In the job description
it states the prospective faculty member is expected to find novel 
ways of raising the money they need on their own.
 
> The bottom line is that if the Palos Verde Blue was is an
> economically depressed urban setting, it would still likely need
> conservation attention, and anyone committed to conservation would be
> morally obligated to attempt intervention on its behalf.

Again I am thinking about the way conservationists here in Calif 
deal with the monarch. They have never, in 30 years, shown an interest
in the fate of habitat on rural, low value land such as monarch
overwintering sites on cattle ranches.
If a rancher wants to cut down a monarch grove to build a barn, they 
look the other way and don't get involved. Or if a windstorm uproots
a monarch grove, they don't want to go in there and replant it. But if
movie star like Herb Alpert wants 
to even build near a monarch grove (without actually cutting it down) 
on his multimillion dollar property on the Malibu coast a whole army
of conservationists will lanch a high profile "save the monarch campaign"
and professors will eagerly get involved in the environmental impact
report and require tens of thousands of dollars worth of mitigation
measures that will end up supporting their research interests. 

Paul Cherubini


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