Blog 3- November 13, 2015

Polar bears swimming

Journey to Churchill exhibit,
Winnipeg Zoo, 
Summer 2015

What role, if any, should zoos play in conservation and education?

I believe that zoos should be the number one line of education to the public on wild animals, given that their information is coming from animal based research of animals in the wild and not those living in captivity. Zoos along with organizations such as Manitoba conservation should be providing us, first and foremost, with information about local animals, what to do upon encountering an animal, but information on exotic animals as well.

Diving for food.

Zoo trainer and young
polar bear. The trainer
was using a clicker
to train the bear
not to claw at the
enclosures door.

Is it ethical to keep animals in zoos? If so, what size or type of animal or zoo?

I think that it is ethical provided that the animals that are in the zoos were orphaned or would otherwise perish in the wild without human intervention. If the animal was born in captivity and has little to no viability for living in the wild or being released into the wild; I believe that they should be kept there. Another must have in zoos, for me, is that the animals are given adequate space in their enclosure that is as close to the size and nature of their natural habitat as possible or is at least proven to be safe for the animals mental and physical health. Zoos must ensure that stereotypic patterns are monitored that they provide the animals with adequate stimulation that they would otherwise receive in the wild. 

Do you enjoy visiting zoos?

Yes I do very much enjoy visiting zoos. Does it leave me feeling conflicted? The answer is also, yes. Zoos are not an ideal place for the animals to be, in a lot of cases, however I do feel they play an important role in public education. You see animals you may never get to see within your life time at the zoo; but does this make it right? Not necessarily. This question is very much circular and there is no, one, perfect, clean cut answer. 

 Consider your food system: What do you like about it? What do you dislike? Consider taste, nutrition, cost, equity and environmental issues?

What I like about my food system is that we rarely throw away any food. Living with 4 room mates, there are usually no leftovers to very few which someone will have eaten by lunch time the next day. What I dislike is that I honestly have no idea where my food actually comes from. Being a student, we keep a lot of canned goods and packaged noodles around that we eat for lunches and snacks here and there. We usually buy lunch meat, lettuce and other items to pack fresh lunches for school and we always make a "family dinner" together. We split the costs of all of our food, so our food bill ends up being a lot cheaper all around. However, for the packaged foods, I have no idea where they come in from or if they are even Canadian. For fresh vegetables, fruit and meat, I am also very unaware. Unfortunately, whenever I shop I am always looking for the best deal. I have a very limited student budget, so the cheaper the better. I did splurge a lot more for fresh fruit and vegetables and was looking in to more local products this past year while undergoing chemotherapy, but since then my effort has dwindled. Unknowingly, rather, without thinking, I have more than likely been contributing and putting money back in to factory farms, imported fruits and vegetables (out of season for Manitoba), consuming foods filled with preservatives, antibiotics, pesticides and to producers who export food from all around the world who are making unnecessary contributions to pollution and climate change. Over all, this is upsetting to me. I want to live sustainably and eat local foods. I want to be able to consume foods with less antibiotics, pesticides and preservatives and be able to trace the farmer from which the food is coming from. I am just unsure about how to do this on such a limited budget. 

Activity: 

FOOD, Inc

I made the decision to re-watch the documentary FOOD, Inc for my blog activity. We watched this documentary in high school and I remember then, feeling uneasy about where my food came from. This film gave me the same feeling today. What especially hit home for me was how we use corn and corn bi products as filler in so many foods, and not just foods but other products such as diapers. Just because we CAN do something, doesn't mean we SHOULD do something, like this.
When we buy cheap food, coming from these industrialized factory farms, we are hurting the genuine farmer. We are supporting a market of dirt cheap and illegal work that the companies are endorsing, we are contributing to "farmers" who are feeding us bacteria, steroid, antibiotic ridden meats and produce. On top of this the majority of the population doesn't even know. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FAMILY FARM? If we know so much about these factory farms, why have they not been shut down? No amount of illnesses, injuries or deaths caused by these factory farms who are producing foods for one of few major companies in this world, nor the government will or can shut them down. Why? Economy. We want dirt cheap food. We cannot afford to change the ways these factories run things now. They have forcibly shut down many family owned, honest farms, where they know what goes in to the food and what comes out of their land. I recently decided to try to trace back some of the products we purchase weekly in our household, to find out where the foods come from. YOU CAN'T. You are lead to link after link after link and its never ending. You never get a definitive answer. I did the same trying to trace back my family farms seed, who we sold it to and where it went after it was sold; it was the same, link after link with no answer. Other than most of the seed ends up being used in products that are only sold outside of the US and Canada.
Sometimes I find the world we live in disgusting for the fact that the companies that have now taken over our lives by controlling our food, do not care about our health and safety or that of their employees. The one thing that should be over regulated and have all of the time in the world put in to it is our food. Its what we live off of and consume.. yet we aren't getting the best of the best and its 2015! The faster is not always the better and I feel like the world needs to smarten up and become aware of this fact before we can no longer bring back honest, healthy foods in to our lives.

Readings

Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization?

This reading answers this question: yes. It discusses how consumption has exceeded the rate of production when it comes to products such as grain. What we don't think about is that we are not only consuming grain when we purchase products such as bread, but we are also feeding the cow and the pig, etc which then must be slaughtered and turned into the meat that we consume. With water shortages, the dramatic loss of topsoil and rising temperatures it becomes more and more difficult to keep up with the world's demand for grain.

  We are in a state in which we demand more food and lower and lower costs to the consumer, despite the detriment to the company. Governments cannot provide and promise our food security, which we can see happening more clearly over seas in places like Afghanistan. Many countries have began to withhold their exported grain and foods to try and provide for themselves as local food is becoming more and more scarce. The text provides this as a way to begin solving the issue; we need to stabilize the worlds population and find a solution to poverty simultaneously. We need to set out a world goal in which we are water aware and topsoil aware and quit wasting what we have before it is gone forever. This is what the author calls "Plan B: Our Only Option"

Critical thinking: According to Lester Brown, demand for food is growing faster than the supply.What are the effects of this trend likely to be? How can we prevent the worst effects? 

If we continue with the trend of having such high demand for food, while the supply becomes more and more limited we will begin to have food shortages which will more than definitely cause conflict around the world. There will be deaths and governmental blame that will fuel the fire surrounding the issue. The only way to prevent its worst effects would be to implement the authors "Plan B" as I discussed above; Limit our topsoil waste, water waste, find a solution for poverty and overpopulation and become a sustainable society as a whole. 

Women's Indigenous Knowledge and Biodiversity Conservation

This reading highlights how women's knowledge and contribution as farmers has been and remains overlooked. It is considered to be outside the norm and outside of women's roles for a woman to help in the production of our food as farmers themselves. Women have the skills required to do such work; they are knowledgeable about the seed, weather conditions and growing conditions that are necessary to grow food. The women who are taking part in this activity are very much qualified to do so, yet we are still overlooked.

What is an "ecofeminist"?

Ecofeminism examines the connection between women and nature. Women and nature come together in that women are the nurturer and nature is the nurtured. This especially applies to this reading when discussing women and their contribution to farming and agriculture. As said above, women doing so are very much qualified to farm and have the knowledge necessary to yield a crop. Ecofeminsim also relates to this reading in that women are the invisible farmers. Farming goes outside of "women's roles" and is "beyond a woman's knowledge". Even though we have this knowledge and it comes from cultural and scientific practices, because they are being done by women it has resulted in women's farming being labelled as by nature for nature. Like it is some inborn thing that we are able to do and that we are just able to relate to nature. This allows for women to be undermined by men in society, as if our agriculture and farming is less valuable than that of a man. What I understand from ecofeminism is that ecofeminists fight for women's rights and also the environment simultaneously. Women have the right to participate in farming and agriculture and farms and growth need the love and care we are able to provide to produce healthy food for ourselves and others. We are one and one with nature yet women are judged based on their gender rather than qualifications, and that is what they are fighting for. 

Human Domination of Earth's Ecosystems

This reading from the text discusses human impacts on the earth's ecosystems and how we are affecting the resources of our planet. Humans have not only physically changed the face of the earth with new developments but we have also chemically changed our planet with our high levels of carbon dioxide.  We, as humans, are exploiting the land for ourselves by converting the land from forests to farms and causing chemical imbalances in the ecosystem. The ocean cannot keep up with carbon dioxide uptake and neither can our plants; our bio-systems and ecosystems  are taking a big hit. There are far too many humans on this earth, and the earth cannot provide resources for such an immense population.

Would it help to reduce the human impact on the Earth if we could reduce the human population?

Yes! It would drastically help the earth to reduce the human population. We cannot keep reproducing expecting the earth to be able to provide for the exponential growth. As a Canadian I never realized just how much space we actually have up here, but if you take a look over seas in places like China and Bangladesh, they are living wall to wall people. Despite how much the human race tries to solve our production issues with new fast growing products the earth just cannot keep up. We need to stop thinking on how to develop the next best thing in solving our issues and revert back to the fundamental issue. We are simply demanding too much of the earth with our extreme population. We need to stop creating more, thinking we can get more. The more we create, the less we have and that is something we don't realize living in the 21st century where developing a quick fix is easier and more cost effective than fixing the underlying issue. We are destroying and depleting this earth for future generations and once its gone we cannot get it back. Reducing the population by putting limits on how many children a family should be allowed to have is a start. However there are a lot of ethical issues surrounding the problem that need to be addressed. Starting with education on the issue and providing people with the knowledge about the dire situation the planet is in, would definitely be a start in implementing new rules and strategies for how we reproduce. I find it sad, but I honestly do not see any other way other than to reduce our population in seeing a future for this planet. With less people we would pollute less, have to produce less, there would be less and less new developments and it would all around be better for not only the planet but for the people and animals on this planet as well.