[AGL] Naughty Elephants

[Byron Allen Black]

The destroyers are as busy here as they are in Brazil, razing forests,
poisoning the rivers with wildcat mining and killing or exporting wildlife
in the quest for quick money.

It's not as bad as it was during Suharto's time when the military would
team up with Chinese entrepreneurs to ransack the woods.

As for the elephants disappearing, it's sort of like every other problem,
which turns upon over-population. As farmers have four sons, each of them
looks for land to plant his sweet potatoes or corn on. The obvious thing is
to use "unused" land, namely, in the state parks. Farmers raze the forest
and plant - turns out this is territory which the elephants roamed
historically. And the same elephants are more than happy to eat the sweet
potatoes. Anybody gets in their way gets stomped (no firearms in the
equation).

So the desperate locals / farmers resort to poisoning the elephants.

The government is attempting to deal with this by  capturing wild elephants
with tranquilizers and then moving them into specific park areas but it's
not easy and there isn't enough money. Also educating the locals as to
tourism value and so on. But they don't see it - all they see is their
ruined fields.

bb


On 5 March 2013 17:50, Frances Morey <Frances_Morey at yahoo.com> wrote:


> I did notice that none those I surveyed had their wealth attributed to

> inheritance--though no doubt most started out that way. The Koch brothers

> certainly did and Donald Trump, too.

> I heard that Jakarta was losing its elephants. I didn't even know they had

> them.

> Best,

> Frances

>

> --- On *Tue, 3/5/13, Byron Allen Black <englishcorrection at gmail.com>*wrote:

>

>

> From: Byron Allen Black <englishcorrection at gmail.com>

> Subject: Re: [GH2] Know your billionaires

> To: "Frances Morey" <frances_morey at yahoo.com>

> Date: Tuesday, March 5, 2013, 3:34 PM

>

>

> Yep Frances, it's always best to take these "most [fill in the blank] in

> the world" with a boulder of salt. The Chinese have a delightful

> expression: "Be quiet and make money" and indeed you would have a hard time

> guessing at their wealth in many cases.

>

> One would suppose your well-to-do acquaintances are in some low-profile

> business, like distribution or property, as opposed to being movie actors

> or casino operators.

>

> But that's not the American way: Howard Hughes, Roy Rogers and Gene Autry

> all ended up with a huge pile, and they were certainly not "quiet" by any

> means.

>

> Just a few thoughts...

>

> On 5 March 2013 10:29, Frances Morey <frances_morey at yahoo.com<http://mc/compose?to=frances_morey@yahoo.com>

> > wrote:

>

> I find it curious that the only one I know who has billions in

> wealth--with an even wealthier wife--that neither of them are on the list.

> Surely there must be some explanation for it. Maybe there are more than

> they have been able to count.

> Best,

> Frances

>

>

> On Mon, Mar 4, 2013 at 11:55 PM, Byron Allen Black <

> englishcorrection at gmail.com<http://mc/compose?to=englishcorrection@gmail.com>

> > wrote:

>

> The richies I've met do not really give the impression of being masters of

> their fortunes as much as servants, dashing hither and yon in various

> quixotic sallies. Even their philanthropy seems compulsive, and when they

> begin to relate the myriad way they've been chiselled (by gubminz, family,

> investment fund managers yadda yadda) you wonder how they stay sane. The

> answer to that more often than not seems to be Jeebus or allah or, in the

> case of Chinese,  family. Allowing religion to clamp down on you is a

> convenient strategy.

>

> I haven't met that many but the only guy I'd like to hang out with is

> Richard Branson, who seems to be a rather normal fellow from all accounts.

> On Mar 4, 2013 4:52 PM, "Roger Baker" <bakeroger at gmail.com<http://mc/compose?to=bakeroger@gmail.com>>

> wrote:

>

> <

> http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/?utm_campaign=forbestwittersf&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social#page:143_sort:0_direction:asc_search:_filter:All%20industries_filter:All%20countries_filter:All%20states

> >

>

> There didn't used to be hardly any of them, but now there are over a

> thousand, including a whole bunch of Waltons. That shows that getting

> ultra-rich has gotten easier than ever before. But even though it has

> gotten a lot easier to rule over thousands of global wage slaves, you

> probably still have to be real smart and you still have to be willing to

> work real hard.

>

>

>

>

>

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