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Chris Packham documentary in Sumatra jungle. TV last night.

laddie49

Anyone watch Chris on TV last night? For those who missed it it was his search for a young woman he had photographed some 20 years ago who was a member of a self-sufficient totally independent tribe living in the jungle.

I'm afraid to say it brought me to tears to watch what has happened to their home over the last two decades. Jungle replaced by palm oil plantations leaving very little chance of them being able to survive without assistance. No animals to hunt nor food to forage, no natural medecines etc. I feel responsible as I am sure many of the things I buy in the supermarket contain palm oil.

I used to believe that tribes such as those he visited in Sumatra, and others still living in the Amazon would be the most likely humans to survive on this planet but after watching this film I am not so sure. The negative aspects of such tribes is the amount of inbreeding that must occur which is not a good thing unless young people travel to join other tribes.

Anyone any thoughts about this programme?

Take care Laddie.

  • in reply to DongFeng5
    DongFeng5 said:
    Personally, it often feels like the only realistic solution is significant de-population of the planet, and naturally I have to include myself in that.

    At my age it won't be long before I am also part of the solution you suggest which I agree with. 

    Take the pressure off the planet resources and give it time to recover.

    Prof James Lovelock suggested between 0.5 and 1.0 billion would be an ideal population in his 1996 book "The Revenge of Gaia".

    I also agree we should continue to look for a long term solution in another solar system.

    The sun has a life much more that 1 million years from what I have read. If we could harness fusion it would solve a lot of our energy needs for a very long time.

  • in reply to laddie49

    I should perhaps point out that I am to some extent playing devil's advocate here...

    Yes, that is true. It is also true that we are a part of the planet. Many species have affected its history. Did the cyanobacteria feel guilty for introducing oxygen into our atmosphere, for example?

    What about previous mass-extinction events? http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/extinction_events

    The type of issue you describe is a thorny topic - who are we to tell some of these remaining native peoples that they need to stay in the jungle to "remain authentic", to go without medical care or education, so that they can be photographed by gawping westerners?

    Environmental issues depress me a great deal, whether it be the type you describe, plastic in the oceans, dwindling water supplies... Personally, it often feels like the only realistic solution is significant de-population of the planet, and naturally I have to include myself in that.

    On the other hand, sometimes it seems that environmental concerns go too far, and there is a desire for things to remain static, forever, as if we arrogantly suppose ourselves to be curators of a vast museum. Eventually I came to realise that it is actually OK for us to trash the planet from a moral point of view, as long as we do so in the successful pursuit of getting our species off this rock before our star runs out of fuel, or we encounter a nearer-term threat, such as the cosmic snooker table that seems likely to result from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliese_710.

    But yes, we do need our ecosystems to last for another million years, since it'll take us that long to find our species a new home, what with all our squabbling and all.

  • in reply to DongFeng5

    We are destroying this planet and our fellow human beings as well as many species of animals who have existed long before we evolved?

  • in reply to laddie49

    What do you think the problem is, then?

  • in reply to DongFeng5

    Yes DF5 you are absolutely correct. That would make me feel less guilty. Unfortunately it won't solve the problem however so I cannot agree with you on that point.

  • So don't buy those things, then? Problem solved.