Who saved Bambi?

Environmentalists would have you know that we have now set aside some 15% of the world's surface for conservation. That's wonderful, of course, but it turns out that they have missed (or perhaps not) a rather more important saviour of the world's wild places.

The identity of this greatest of environmental heroes is revealed by one of GWPF's regular authors, Indur Goklany, in a paper just published in the journal Conservation Biology. It turns out that environmentalists should be cheering to the rafters...you guessed it...fossil fuels. Goklany's analysis shows that without them, and without the fertilisers they produce, 20% of the world's wild places would have to go under the plough to keep the world fed. The alternative is mass starvation.

So environmentalists really need to sit down and think very carefully about what they are trying to do with their constant war on fossil fuels. As Goklany puts it

...while eliminating [fossil fuel] use could reduce climate change, its unintended consequences might be to significantly exacerbate biodiversity loss...

So the only thing standing between the rainforests and the savannahs and destruction by the plough, the only thing preventing Bambi being wiped from the face of the earth, is Exxon, Shell, Chevron et al.

Dear environmentalists, you can show your gratitude now.