Is conservation merely delaying the inevitable?

[peejay]

This is really aimed at conservationists in the UK, one of the most overpopulated countries in the world.
Each government promises to build more and more houses for a population which is predicted to double, yes, double in the next forty years. If they did not, they would be voted out.
There just will not be any room left for animals. If you do conserve them in reservations they will escape and be run over. People are only interested in themselves; if there is a choice between animals' and people's interests people will always win.
Truthfully, what is the point?
PS I am an animal lover and it appals me to see what is happening to our wildlife.

 

[Ellis]

You are absolutely correct. The fact is that most of the world's and not just the UK's problems stem from overpopulation. I'm sure that if we wanted to we could build double the present number of homes in the UK but as you say at what cost to the "natural" environment? Even if those bleeding hearts who claim that human lives are more valuable win the day, we have to ask ourselves just what quality of life will those humans enjoy when they are all crammed together in soulless housing estates? We should set an upper limit on the size of the population of these overcrowded islands (preferably at a lower level than the present population thus solving the so called housing crisis) and this would take the issue out of the political arena and allow some realistic planning of infrastructure etc (and for the natural environment) without it being blown off course by massive migrations that for some reason we feel compelled to accommodate.

 

[Phlewid]

There is no solid black or white answer to your question, however there are some key ingredients to a response.

First, based on census history we can predict how fast we will double the population in any environment. This may be how they determined forty years, taking into consideration death/birth rate & migration. This number is at best, just an educated guess.

Second, the ability for land to sustain life is limited.

Third, the amount of land we have to live with is a static quantity.

Given those ingredients, lets introduce two families that live on a 100 acre planet. As generations pass, the 100 acres is dissected to help the families of offspring, and population is growing faster than death occurs. At some point technology improves quality of life allowing 10 acres to sustain as many people as 100 acres. However the returns of technology are diminishing with each new advance, and the motivation for such technology was in the interest of supporting more people, and to allow fewer farmers to produce more food, not conserving land.

But at some point all of those factors will only support "X" amount of people on that 100 acre planet, if they go beyond "X" then the island will not sustain the elements of its ecosystem (ex: animals are hunted into extinction, the balance of predator to prey collapses, disease occurs and technology fails to fight it).

Conservation is really just a means to approach "X" as cautiously as possible, while maintaining the systems that sustain the life we know.