Introduction
Since the third quarter of the 20th century, the human race has been the only race containing the moral agent and conscience of the Earth. With this, the other forms of species should not be from the consideration of life. Homo sapiens have held dominant ethics in that regarding the welfare of the other millions of species in the world. This is the reason that ethics calls for the biological world to specify the culture of the biological world. This has to be argued from the nature of morality.
According to Rolston, man is the only measurer of moral issues (99). He is thus the determinant of the wild immoral things. The ancestors, who lived in closer association with domestic and wild animals, did not consider the existence of the endangered species, the ozone layer, ecosystems, and acidic rains. However, it is until recently that science has brought humanistic enlightenment for animals. Psychologists and philosophers also show their concern for the preservation and protection of the endangered species. Ethics demands that people should treat humanly all other non-human animals. These non-human animals do not share the human characteristics of having the capacity to talk and reason. Instead, the human beings are solely responsible to think and reason on their behalf.
Therefore, the rights of animals have been confirmed in the constitutions of most countries. People from different countries have therefore been mandated to offer protection to animals, especially the endangered species. This has been included in various cultures to extend the rights of animals in a comprehensive environmental ethics. According to Holmes Rolson III, every person should take a personal responsibility to protect and preserve any species, even if there is an absence of conceivable human use provided by the species.
The Houston Toad
The toad became endangered as a result of loss and alteration of habitats. This disappearance of breeding ponds became the most serious of the threats. It started from the action of clearing the vegetation near the breeding ponds, thus reducing the quality of breeding, resting, and feeding, increasing thereby the chances of predation.
- Therefore, to conserve all these habitation facilities and other needed areas, public funds have to be diverted from their intended public use. This rehabilitation projects will require additional funds other than the suggested funds allocated for protection of Houston toads.
- Despite the Houston toad being an endangered species, the funds allocated to the development of rehabilitation facilities for the Houston toad will limit other intended developments in the economy. This protection of habitats turns to be an opportunity cost for regional development in the country.
Recent studies have revealed that there exists a spatial distribution of biological benefits and some economic costs associated with planning for conservation of the endangered species. It has been shown that sustainability can be achieved from a limited budget with a larger biological advantage than planning for ignored costs. Despite the pressure from external forces on the effectiveness of conservation, the government has not yet discovered the efficiency of planning incorporation costs.
Systematic Conservation Economic and Planning Costs
This is an attempt to stem the losses of biodiversity, ecologists and biological conservatisms to focus on the plans of conservation affecting biological targets. The focus of most writings on conservation planning is aimed at the biological advantage of planning. Ignoring the costs associated with conservation planning is often the biological advantage of the plans.
According to Rolston, the value of nature and the deeper consideration of environmental ethics lead us to an understanding of the related intrinsic value. The Earth is the provider of all resources, and they are the only objective valuables. The nature also provides enough challenges and enjoyment and thus has enough capacity to produce all things in plenty. Since the value of nature requires a human experience, the value of human experience reduces.
Challenges in Environmental Ethics: Reasons to Limit Bush meat Hunting
Ethicists emphasize that the culture of causing pain to animals should be reduced. The nature of predation involving meat hunting by human beings needs be reduced. They call for the only existing moral animals (human beings) to reduce and refuse participation of meat hunting in order to preserve the ecology. They should do this just the same way as they refuse to live by the rules of mere selection.
What is most invariably seen as bad kind of meat eating is that an organism can be viewed as instrumentally bad in the view of human interest. There is nothing anthropocentric about this in ecological or biological value, thus there are no forces for evaluating objective nature in the humanistic forces available in the ecosystem. Bush meat hunting has remained an activity that has been sustainable in many generations. However, the human population has increased significantly causing the demand for game meat to rise in a proportionately manner.
This has made the wildlife harvest to be unsustainable. According to modern zoologists, bush meat hunting has come as a result of precipitous decrease in the number of apes. If this trend continues unchecked, hunting of bush meat is likely to lead to their extinction, especially to the endangered species. The primates appeared to be the most vulnerable due to their wide distribution and restriction to forested regions of Central and West Africa. These areas undergo rapid economic development, and newly cut logging roads accelerate the hunting of bush meat in the previously isolated forests.
The contributing factors of this activity are the greatest concession for the bush meat trade. Logging is the major contributor, which is the primary means of access to the remotest of forests for hunters from the city (Preston 78). The best way of resolving this conflict is to have the government unite with the local community in developing the management models. This can well be managed in the hunting tourism, game-ranching and community-based management with new mechanisms of law enforcement and monitoring.
The most significant recommendation for the solutions to these problems includes:
- The government should implement community-based wildlife management and other measures to improve wildlife management models, such as hunting tourism and game ranching.
- The community should raise the minimum livestock held per ranching.
- The government should enhance the support of sustainable timber harvesting and other forest products.
This report also recognizes the need to clarify and define a land tenure process and access to land rights in order to improve monitoring of the harvesting and trading process of bush meat. This will also enhance the proper implementation of bush meat laws and regulations.
Conclusion
To address the bush meat crisis, the government requires a diverse approach, from undertaking anti-poaching operations to educating the masses on the importance of bio-diversity and sustainability. To enforce these laws, we must have proper principles of conduct. Policy developers thus depend on biological and sociological research from policy enforcers.
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