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Have we reached Peak World Birding? (1 Viewer)

I mean I got a little bit lost in where I was heading, but I actually want to answer the original question: maybe there is this problem for the extremely dedicated birder who spends months looking up the locations (or pays a tour company exorbitant money to do so for them), but for everyone else, the situation is completely opposite. Information about where to see birds is getting somewhat available to "normal people" (well, and, also, like, myself). I really don't know, maybe the amount of species available to the most dedicated world lister is indeed declining, but the overall number of man-species (as in "man-hour", you get the idea) is definitely on the rise.

Still waiting for an invite to the cabal though.
 
I see the argument against travel and for carbon offset when you do. On the other hand, birders are (at least mostly) rare enough that for flights, no-one adds an extra flight because birders want to go somewhere - the flights are preexisting due to family visits, beach vacations or business people traveling. So if you are going on a birding trip, how much extra carbon is released because you are purchasing a seat in a flight that would be going anyway, and how much forest is conserved because of birders visiting reserves/lodges and paying for access/accommodation? (and this last point goes into a recent discussion in a different thread ;) )

But the bird numbers going down due to habitat loss: the other day, a chief scientist in Brazil was fired because he dared tell the public that the Amazon was suffering deforestation when the prime minister wanted that hidden.

Niels
 
njlarsen said:
I see the argument against travel and for carbon offset when you do. On the other hand, birders are (at least mostly) rare enough that for flights, no-one adds an extra flight because birders want to go somewhere - the flights are preexisting due to family visits, beach vacations or business people traveling. So if you are going on a birding trip, how much extra carbon is released because you are purchasing a seat in a flight that would be going anyway, and how much forest is conserved because of birders visiting reserves/lodges and paying for access/accommodation? (and this last point goes into a recent discussion in a different thread ;) )

But the bird numbers going down due to habitat loss: the other day, a chief scientist in Brazil was fired because he dared tell the public that the Amazon was suffering deforestation when the prime minister wanted that hidden.

Niels
Click to expand...

Yep, the Amazon is being logged at a rate faster than any time in the last four years due to Bolsonaro's logging permits so don't blame the birders.
 
Well this is not really a fair logic. Everyone could then say that it's not them who cause the extra plane, right? It's the same fallacy as claiming that you don't go to vote because one vote never changes anything. Quantization in terms of whole airplanes just doesn't really describe what's actually happening, calculating your share as if it were a continuous process is the only reasonable way to get any idea of your effect on the environment.

That having said, I roughly double the total CO2 production of an average person summing up my yearly flights only, but I will have no children, which is theoretically an infinite reduction in consumption in the long term so sorry, I am not sorry :)
 
andyadcock said:
Yep, the Amazon is being logged at a rate faster than any time in the last four years due to Bolsonaro's logging permits so don't blame the birders.
Click to expand...

Bolsonaro is reported today a recommending everybody just craps every second day to save the planet, apparently as a response to a journalist attempting a question about deforestation...
MJB
 
MJB said:
Bolsonaro is reported today a recommending everybody just craps every second day to save the planet, apparently as a response to a journalist attempting a question about deforestation...
MJB
Click to expand...

I think that quote originates from the Venezuelan president or at least, something very similar?
 
I agree with original post. Climate change and habitat loss are destroying biodiversity with increasing speed. With news like these, it's hard to imagine a bright future for tropical forest birds.
 
Captain_of_Crunch said:
Wow! The hypocrisy in this post is something else. Encouraging destruction of natural habitats for the extremely selfish activity of world listing? And with no responsibility taken for the ultimate extinction of the species you are viewing?
Click to expand...

Wow, the self-righteous judgement in THIS post is something else, too.

In no way was I encouraging the destruction of habitats to improve world listing. I was simply saying that many of these countries are spending resources on improving infrastructure, especially roads, in order to help their human populations. As they do that it will make seeing rare species easier.

I'm not even suggesting that development is entirely a good thing. Of course that development has both its good sides and bad sides. In many ways it's good for some of the people for whom the development is being done, but clearly it may not be good for the habitat or the flora and fauna of the developed areas.

I'm quite aware of that situation. I've seen the damage first hand in the Amazon basin and the Philippines, and even here in my local area, and it's extremely disheartening.

So take your nastiness elsewhere.

Farnboro John said:
Yes, but for how long will the "development" consist of making birding easier before it results in local/world extinction of the species opened up? That's the overall premise of the thread and I should have thought the Philippines is one of the places headed for disaster with the throttle foot firmly on the floor.

John
Click to expand...

Sorry, I missed that aspect of the thread. But as I clarified above, my suggestion is not that areas be specifically opened just for birding, but simply that finding some species will become easier as a side effect of the uncontrolled development. But you're absolutely right that the ultimate result of that development sadly may very well be the extinction of those species.
 
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DMW said:
I have read that forest has now been cleared for agriculture all the way up to the Del Monte lodge.
Click to expand...

Yes, that's essentially true. The only area that has not been cleared for agriculture is a small gorge that's too steep-sided to farm. In fact, the entire area has been cleared all the way up to the eagle viewpoint with only scattered patches of trees between the farm plots. On the trail from the village to the lodge we were competing for trail space with horses carrying vegetables from the farms to the village.
 
Jeff hopkins said:
Yes, that's essentially true. The only area that has not been cleared for agriculture is a small gorge that's too steep-sided to farm. In fact, the entire area has been cleared all the way up to the eagle viewpoint with only scattered patches of trees between the farm plots. On the trail from the village to the lodge we were competing for trail space with horses carrying vegetables from the farms to the village.
Click to expand...

Has it been cleared by locals or by Del Monte, it was all Pineapple fields when I was there?
 
andyadcock said:
Has it been cleared by locals or by Del Monte, it was all Pineapple fields when I was there?
Click to expand...

The pineapple fields are closer to Damitan village in the lower section you pass through by jeepney. Beyond the village it all seems like private plots, many of which had small "homes" on them.

It definitely seemed more like subsistence agriculture or small private plots for selling at market than it did industrial farming. Definitely no utilities running to the area, although the camp had water for flush toilets, but only bucket showers, and no electricity. And no motorized vehicles anywhere beyond Damitan - no motorbikes or tractors. Fields were being plowed using horses. We also saw some domestic Muscovy ducks on a small pond.

I remember a large potato field between the camp and the lookout and some corn as well. When we walked back down to the village, there were numerous horses being led down the trail with sacks of potatoes. And many of the fields above the camp were bare dirt in mid-May with the occasional bull or horse tied up grazing on the edges of other nearby fields.
 
Farnboro John said:
Western Europe was cleared like that, though it took a while. All of it.

John
Click to expand...

So was much of the US. People don't realize that there is more forest in the US now than there was 150 years ago.

And given the population of the Philippines - and other parts of what used to be called "the Third World" for that matter - it's going to happen at a much faster rate there than it did for us.
 
Jeff hopkins said:
So was much of the US. People don't realize that there is more forest in the US now than there was 150 years ago.

And given the population of the Philippines - and other parts of what used to be called "the Third World" for that matter - it's going to happen at a much faster rate there than it did for us.
Click to expand...

Assuming that the clearances are illegal, I wonder why there is no governmental intervention?

In the long run, this will cause soil erosion and exacerbate problems from flooding.
 
Jeff hopkins said:
So was much of the US. People don't realize that there is more forest in the US now than there was 150 years ago.

And given the population of the Philippines - and other parts of what used to be called "the Third World" for that matter - it's going to happen at a much faster rate there than it did for us.
Click to expand...

I don't doubt it. There is genuinely no hope for such places.

John
 
Seeing the gloom and doom here made me thing about something positive - and I succeeded! Putting aside the obvious habitat loss happening everywhere, we should appreciate, that from birding perspective, new places open up simply because they become accessible to foreign visitors. Again, I am not very well versed in details of world birding, but even I can think of a few examples. Western Sahara was a warzone a few decades ago, now it's one of the safest places in the whole belt of "true Sahara". The dangerous area of Peru, where foreigner kidnappings are an issue, has been shrinking for years. Saudi Arabia finally started giving out tourist visa this year afaik, has anyone tried that yet? I bet there is a lot of similar stories around the world. Despite what the mass media want us to believe (so that we consume more of their bullshit), the world is getting safer by the minute and that surely is a boost to birders who usually want to travel to the silliest of places.
 
andyadcock said:
Assuming that the clearances are illegal, I wonder why there is no governmental intervention?

In the long run, this will cause soil erosion and exacerbate problems from flooding.
Click to expand...

IMO, a combination of corruption, lack of will, and lack of money. And the first leads to the last.

And Opisska states more eloquently what I first attempted to say (before I got attacked).
 
opisska said:
Seeing the gloom and doom here made me thing about something positive - and I succeeded! Putting aside the obvious habitat loss happening everywhere, we should appreciate, that from birding perspective, new places open up simply because they become accessible to foreign visitors. Again, I am not very well versed in details of world birding, but even I can think of a few examples. Western Sahara was a warzone a few decades ago, now it's one of the safest places in the whole belt of "true Sahara". The dangerous area of Peru, where foreigner kidnappings are an issue, has been shrinking for years. Saudi Arabia finally started giving out tourist visa this year afaik, has anyone tried that yet? I bet there is a lot of similar stories around the world. Despite what the mass media want us to believe (so that we consume more of their bullshit), the world is getting safer by the minute and that surely is a boost to birders who usually want to travel to the silliest of places.
Click to expand...

Destinations come and destinations go. I spent quite a bit of time in the late 1980s in Africa, and pretty much the whole continent was safely accessible apart from Angola, Mozambique and Ethiopia. I even visited Somalia and what is now DRC. While Western Sahara might well be available now, most of the Sahel region is no longer safe.

Asia by contrast is generally way more accessible. The whole of former French Indochina was off limits, as was almost all the NE Himalayas. China was very restricted, apart from Hong Kong. All top birding destinations now. Kashmir, Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan were all safe.

Who knows what's next?!

To answer your question about Saudi, quite a few backpackers have visited. I've been trying to organise a visit, but at the moment there is a weird system where you have to book tickets to a cultural or sporting event in order to obtain a tourist visa. This is very easy to do online. The problem is that these events seem to get advertised on the sharek website at very short notice, giving very little time to find affordable flights and make arrangements. But people are going.
 
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