When it comes to dealing with endangered species, there are two basic approaches:

First, there’s the progressive approach of supporting scientific research into the status of endangered species, coming up with fact-based plans for recovery, and working with local human populations to come up with a plan that is socially sustainable.

Second, there’s the laissez-faire plan that the right wingers promote: Don’t do anything, and see what happens under free market conditions. If species go extinct, that’s okay, because the free market is inherently wise, and so those species must have been undesirable to start with.

The sun bear has been dealing with an excess of the second approach, as market forces have reduced its habitat to unsustainable size and have encouraged hunting even of its scarce numbers. Before this year, it was not really known whether sun bears were endangered. However, the first progressive step of scientific research resulted in the sun bear being placed on the World Conservation Union’s list of threatened species.

In 2008, we need to put a President in the White House who will ensure that the next progressive step is taken toward finding a solution to the sun bear crisis.

(Source: The Guardian, November 13, 2007)

Post Script:Following in the footsteps of J.Clifford’s search for his daemon, I visited the web site of the Golden Compass movie, and discovered that my daemon is a tiger named Amantha: