Taboo Subject or Not, Overpopulation is the World's Biggest Threat

For a while it was talked about. But now, once again, overpopulation seems to have become a taboo topic. But with the populations of China, India and Indonesia all around the one billion mark, the time for such coyness is long past. China's one child policy is fine in its own way. But what is needed is population reduction. Despite what many people say food production is not the main problem resulting from too many people. The real problem is the utilisation of the world's finite resources - metals, fuels and so forth.

Ultimately unless mankind starts to control its population the world's resources will unable to sustain that population.

The time to start talking and debating and planning is NOW.

Can Speciation Assist Conservation ?

Threatened Species tend to get a lot more attention than threatened sub-species. For example the Giraffe has several subspecies whose populations are under severe threat. Recently there has been talk that Giraffes should be split into perhaps 8 or more Species. I think that this should happen as soon as possible. The result of such speciation or splitting is that a lot more attention would be focussed on the threats faced by the 'new' Species of Giraffes. For example the Reticulated Giraffe in northern Kenya. And the West African Giraffe. The creation of separate Species of Giraffe would make it much easier for conservation bodies to raise funds to save individual Giraffe Species. And of course conservation always needs charismatic species to highlight the need for conservation measures. Ultimately habitat preservation is the best form of conservation so these charismatic species also work to help conserve all the other forms of life dependant on the same habitat.

Another animal that could be helped by Speciation is the Asiatic Cheetah. At the moment it is highly threatened but because Cheetah numbers in Africa are still relatively good it is difficult to raise funds for the Asiatic Subspecies. But if the Asiatic Cheetah was given full Species status then its world population of around 100 individuals would be given much more significance. Followed hopefully by increased levels of conservation funding and assistance.