36
That treaties intended to save life, for however many reasons, do not succeed,
because of humans.
25
And yet, the countering argument: Change does occur.
Consider the decision by the former Prime Minister of New Zealand John Key, to
create a marine reserve in New Zealand’s northern waters the size of France.
26
It can
happen just like that. The five largest marine reserves in the world, covering millions of square kilometers, consecrated into law within the last seven years, in
France, Britain, Australia, and the United States. Rapid protective mechanisms.
The dialectic at the heart of ecological paradox is unsparing. Since October
1945, when the UN was founded, the human population has soared over 300%,
from approximately 2.5 billion to over 7.8 billion. During that same period the
Green Revolution came of age, spawning great faith in technology to feed humanity
through more genetic hybrid innovation, more sustainable land tenure and agricultural reforms that all promise greater parity, empowerment of women, environmental justice, and sustainable land use. Instead, other paradoxes—famine amid plenty,
of a parched and violent world—have cascaded. Since the mid-1980s, our species
has exceeded the appropriation of 40% of all the products of photosynthesis on the
planet, or NPP, net primary production. No species has ever so trespassed, throwing
into confusion the very nature of globalization, given our one species’ surreal sense
of superiority and accompanying dominion by force over every continent.
27
The
“pain points,” in combination with the NPP dominion, and the as yet inordinately
modest patchwork of protected areas—and patchy protection itself—has combined
both in human natures, and in the world we know, to exterminate more than 50% of
life forms, including approximately 75% of the large ones, and—excluding the few
prolific other vertebrates earlier mentioned—50% of the smaller ones.
4.4 Legal Standing for Nature
The late Juri Lotman, in his and Wilma Clark’s famed 1984 essay “On the
Semiosphere”,
28
paved the way for recognizing a biosphere teeming with abundant
signals between species—the basis of interspecies communications. By that insight
all our notions of globalization and politics, of law and self-expression, have been
25 See Donald K. Anton, “`Treaty Congestion’ in International Environmental Law,” International
Law Reporter, January 24, 2012, http://ilreports.blogspot.com/2012/01/anton-treaty-congestionin.html; and Lawrence Susskind, “Strengthening the Global Environmental Treaty System,” Issues
in Science and Technology, Volume XXV, Issue 1, Fall 2008, http://issues.org/25-1/susskind/; See
“IEA Project Contents” for “Environmental agreements currently in the database,” https://iea.uoregon.edu/iea-project-contents, Accessed May 13, 2020.
26 See New Zealand to turn Kermadec into vast marine reserve, BBC News, September 29, 2015,
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34387945
27 See “Human Appropriation of the Productions of Photosynthesis,”by Peter Vitousek, Paul
R. Ehrlich, Anne H. Ehrlich and Pamela Matson, 1986, http://dieoff.com/page83.htm; See also,
also: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/GlobalMaps/view.php?d1=MOD17A2_M_PSN
28 See Sign Systems Studies, 33 (1):205-226 (2005) https://philpapers.org/rec/LOTOTS-2
4 Protected Area Dilemmas
That treaties intended to save life, for however many reasons, do not succeed,
because of humans.
25
And yet, the countering argument: Change does occur.
Consider the decision by the former Prime Minister of New Zealand John Key, to
create a marine reserve in New Zealand’s northern waters the size of France.
26
It can
happen just like that. The five largest marine reserves in the world, covering millions of square kilometers, consecrated into law within the last seven years, in
France, Britain, Australia, and the United States. Rapid protective mechanisms.
The dialectic at the heart of ecological paradox is unsparing. Since October
1945, when the UN was founded, the human population has soared over 300%,
from approximately 2.5 billion to over 7.8 billion. During that same period the
Green Revolution came of age, spawning great faith in technology to feed humanity
through more genetic hybrid innovation, more sustainable land tenure and agricultural reforms that all promise greater parity, empowerment of women, environmental justice, and sustainable land use. Instead, other paradoxes—famine amid plenty,
of a parched and violent world—have cascaded. Since the mid-1980s, our species
has exceeded the appropriation of 40% of all the products of photosynthesis on the
planet, or NPP, net primary production. No species has ever so trespassed, throwing
into confusion the very nature of globalization, given our one species’ surreal sense
of superiority and accompanying dominion by force over every continent.
27
The
“pain points,” in combination with the NPP dominion, and the as yet inordinately
modest patchwork of protected areas—and patchy protection itself—has combined
both in human natures, and in the world we know, to exterminate more than 50% of
life forms, including approximately 75% of the large ones, and—excluding the few
prolific other vertebrates earlier mentioned—50% of the smaller ones.
4.4 Legal Standing for Nature
The late Juri Lotman, in his and Wilma Clark’s famed 1984 essay “On the
Semiosphere”,
28
paved the way for recognizing a biosphere teeming with abundant
signals between species—the basis of interspecies communications. By that insight
all our notions of globalization and politics, of law and self-expression, have been
25 See Donald K. Anton, “`Treaty Congestion’ in International Environmental Law,” International
Law Reporter, January 24, 2012, http://ilreports.blogspot.com/2012/01/anton-treaty-congestionin.html; and Lawrence Susskind, “Strengthening the Global Environmental Treaty System,” Issues
in Science and Technology, Volume XXV, Issue 1, Fall 2008, http://issues.org/25-1/susskind/; See
“IEA Project Contents” for “Environmental agreements currently in the database,” https://iea.uoregon.edu/iea-project-contents, Accessed May 13, 2020.
26 See New Zealand to turn Kermadec into vast marine reserve, BBC News, September 29, 2015,
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34387945
27 See “Human Appropriation of the Productions of Photosynthesis,”by Peter Vitousek, Paul
R. Ehrlich, Anne H. Ehrlich and Pamela Matson, 1986, http://dieoff.com/page83.htm; See also,
also: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/GlobalMaps/view.php?d1=MOD17A2_M_PSN
28 See Sign Systems Studies, 33 (1):205-226 (2005) https://philpapers.org/rec/LOTOTS-2
4 Protected Area Dilemmas