ANIMAL MARTYRDOM

“It’s very bad when the same people that you are working with [in the community], telling them the importance of wild animals, and you find them killing those wild animals,” says Ruth Sikeita, one of the rangers on the scene.

Papatiti says that while bushmeat poaching incidents have increased over time, the killing of elephants for ivory has declined. He estimates that between three to five elephants were poached on community lands annually from when the OCWR was established in 2010 until IFAW began to support the unit in 2018, when only one elephant was lost. No more elephants have been killed on the Group Ranch since.

“I attribute the success to dedication from rangers and how we built a very good relationship with the community, which is our source of intel,” explains Papatiti.

PATRICE GREANVILLE—These developments pleased (but scarcely surprised) the oil and auto industries. Hardly a disinterested observer, the auto industry, in particular, led by General Motors, had long pressed the American government for the dismantlement of most forms of public transportation. The switch eventually doomed numerous rail and bus systems across the nation; by the late ’40s the car and its inseparable sidekick, the highway, had won. From that point on, the yearly advance of the asphalt ribbons became a fact of life in the young, car-addicted republic.

Where humans move out, wildlife moves in… What would happen if the world were suddenly without people – if humans vanished off the face of the earth? How would nature react – and how swiftly? On the edge of Europe, a deserted location reveals the surprising answer. An abandoned village can change in a very short time into a sanctuary for plants, birds and animals. Shy and rare species, some thought to be on the brink of extinction are found in robust good health. This is Chernobyl, deserted by people after the worst nuclear disaster in history and now reclaimed by a remarkable collection of wildlife and the descendents of pets that were left in the city when the people went away. This film unmasks the surprising faces of the new inhabitants. In houses where people once lived and laughed, unexpected wildlife is making itself at home.

David Doel and David Pakman file reports on the latest successful prank by a/r activists against big Factory Farming.

CHRIS HEDGES—Razing the rainforest for cattle grazing and vast tracts of farmland devoted to growing monocrops to feed animals destined for human consumption are responsible for up to 91 percent of Amazon rainforest destruction since 1970. The loss of forests is one of the single biggest contributors to climate change. Animal agriculture is the leading cause of ocean dead zones. Oceans could be devoid of fish by 2048. Each minute, 7 million pounds of feces are produced by the animals raised for human food in the US alone. The continued destruction of natural habitat, coupled with the vast factory farms which use 80 percent of the antibiotics in the U.S. and incubate drug-resistant pathogens that spread to human populations, presage new forms of the Black Death.

The belief that we can maintain current levels of consumption, especially of animal products, capitalist expansion, imperial wars, a reliance on fossil fuels and abject subservience to unfettered corporate power, which has solidified the worst income inequality in human history, is not a form of hope but suicidal self-delusion.