- Bruce Rich
- Environmental Forum
- January-February 2017
- p. 21
Conservation success stories like Kaziranga in India's Assam state have little long-term chance to succeed as enclaves in an increasingly unstable economic and social context. The questions are profoundly ethical: are we concerned about tuberculosis in poor tea workers in Assam only because it also threatens elephants? Do we want to alleviate poverty surrounding protected areas only because it threatens endangered species? Do we shoot on sight poachers, but accept corrupted legal systems that fail the poor? On a crowded planet, environmental protection and social equity are inextricably interrelated. Attempting to achieve either alone will ultimately fail without simultaneously pursuing the other.
