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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Valéry Schollaert" data-source="post: 2193739" data-attributes="member: 75148">No, but I don't limit conservation to respect of "species", which is a great concept, but still a concept. Respect of individuals, for example, should be taken in consideration. Otherwise, all your argument for collecting can be applied to human - with a population of 7 billions +, collecting wouldn't be of any threat for the species and for sure make some studies easier or cheaper.Andrew, it is true that I'm agressive on the subject, but killing is a crime; I feel difficult to talk peacefully on ciminal behaviour such people killing, raping, pedophily and so on. Is killing newly discovered or rare species less serious? If you think yes, why? Personally I don't think so.I'm now working on a project to help conservation of a small remnant forest in West Usambara in Tanzania. 5-6000 hectares of forest is nothing, but some bird populations rely on those small pockets of primary forest to survive. Protecting the species involved is simple: we have to stop to cut tree, a prevent poaching, hunting or mining in the forest. Right?What would be the interest of a scientist  coming a collecting a new species, let's say, even a butterfly, in the forest? Will it helps the forest? The protection of that insect? At this stage every effort should focus on one point: stop spoiling the forest. Every natural tree of that forest should be considered as "sacred", as every animals, insect or plant. If we do this (I mean if we leave the forest in peace), all remaining birds, animals and insect species in the forest would be saved. But this forest is just at a smaller scale what's happening in the World. Nature is limited to a pocket compared to spoiled and exploited areas. Let's protect them; stop destroy, disturb and exploit.James Lovelock wrote this."The natural world would welcome nuclear waste as the perfect guardian against greedy developers, and whatever slight harm it might represent was a small price to pay… One of the striking things about places heavily contaminated by radioactive nuclides is the richness of their wildlife… The preference of wildlife for nuclear-waste sites suggests that the best sites for its disposal are the tropical forests and other habitats in need of a reliable guardian against their destruction by hungry farmers and developers."I don't agree on the strategy (is he serious or provoking? I wonder!), but the fundamental information is there: the only problem too keep a natural area... natural, is human. Let's keep human out of those places. Including "scientists".</blockquote>

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