Allen
I have to say that I found your post very disappointing.
>the remnants of a supposedly extinct or nearly extinct and reconstituted
>strain by
use of quarantines and legislation, then we are not talking so much about
conservation, but rather a project in which there is bound to be a conflict
of ideas
relating to rights, privileges, priorities and restraint of trade.
Remnants? Extinct? As I am sure that you know, A.m.m. is found over a
large part of northern Europe. It is far from extinct, but is endangered
due to the activities of humans - not 'nature'. And what rights do we have
to endanger a species or sub-species?
>Nature seems to be indifferent or perhaps unaware of its importance...
Would one expect 'nature' to have awareness?
>In nature, over time, we see periodic and seemingly indiscriminate
>extinctions,
and highly destructive events like earthquakes...
Agree - but these are natural events over which we have no control, not
intervention by man - which is what we are talking about when discussing
conservation here.
>so it would seem that "conservation" is a human concept in response to a
>problem perceived by humans -- and not at all natural.
That depends. To try to conserve in the face of natural events may be
wrong - unless, as you say, that which we are trying to conserve has an
intrinsic value to us (I would, of course, argue that this applies to
A.m.m.), but here we are trying to conserve something, not from natural
events, but from the activities of beekeepers who, for their own perceived
personal gain, are introducing exotic sub-species to an area. On a broader
scale, we are all trying to conserve honeybees generally following the
unnatural disaster of varroa - again caused by man's greed; would you also
argue against that?
I think that Peter Borst got it right:
>Ideally, conservation would be simply getting out of The Way.
Getting in the way seems to me to be what we do best - by moving genetic
material (plants, animals - including bees, and diseases) all around the
world in a way that either would not have happened in nature, or would have
happened so slowly that there would have been time for things to adapt and
evolve.
Best wishes
Peter
***********************************************
The BEE-L mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html
Guidelines for posting to BEE-L can be found at:
http://honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm
|