This week, I watched ‘Conservation’s Dirty Secrets’. Fronted by Oliver Steeds, who takes it upon himself to travel the world to discover the dark secrets behind what is dubbed the ‘conservation movement’ (as if it’s the latest fashion to sweep the nation).
There are many organizations out there that could be called into question in such a programme, most notably of which is the – what I consider the wonderful – Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, who make it their duty to attempt to sink whaling ships out on the seas. What I found disturbing was that, instead, Steeds scratches the surface on several issues he has a concern with, not really covering any of them in great detail. As a result, he accidentally or purposefully links them all to being as bad as one another, leading many comments online to express their shock that WWF is linked to the eradication of tribes in Africa (which they most certainly are not!).
I’m fearful of shows like this, which portray conservation as one big collected movement which doesn’t understand what it’s doing, and therefore mis-educate people on how conservation really works. Steeds takes great glee in declaring conservation to be a capitalist regime which is more interested with its relations with big businesses than locals projects in the countries concerned. It fails to recognize the hundreds of locals projects worldwide, in probably every country in the world, which WWF organizes and funds. Big business is just one part of conservation, and a necessary part at that, but Steeds pounces on the opportunity to suggest that conservation organizations are doing everything wrong, and have no idea what they’re doing. Thanks for your opinion, Oliver. With your background of expertise in conservation (wait, what was that? None?), you’ll be sure to be of great assistance to conservation efforts worldwide.
The most laughable instance of this is Steeds’ treatment of WWF ‘adopt an animal’ schemes. Cue dark mysterious music and spotlights, and the slow, sinister cinematography work over a line of WWF’s range of cuddly toys. He claims that the cuddly toy ‘adopt an animal movement’ has pretty animals like pandas, tigers and leopards plastered across its websites, pleading for attention and funding, but refuses to talk about the ugly reptiles and amphibians, and hence these animals are neglected and unfunded. Um, no, sir.
Let’s look at how marketing for conservation organisations works for one quick minute. In a world today of mass, MASS media, and eye-catching adverts in every direction, conservation HAS to be marketed somehow. The question is, what is going to appeal to people to save their world? Unfortunately, what doesn’t appeal to people is ‘Let’s save these poisonous snakes and ugly reptiles from extinction across the world! Imagine our world without them!!!!’. Sorry, but that’s not the way our world today works.
Instead, we have to take an iconic animal, such as the tiger, the panda or the polar bear, and use that to raise awareness. One of the MAJOR factors that has made the Year of the Tiger, or 2 x Tiger, campaign so successful is the fact that WWF and other organisations reiterate time and time again that if we can save the tiger, we have saved its entire ecosystem, from the trees, to the forests, to – yup, you guessed it. All its little reptiles and amphibians.
Unfortunately, those animals just don’t market like a tiger does. WWF acknowledges this openly. In its latest issue of Action, its monthly magazine, it opens with the following page:
Fish aren’t glamorous. They never have been. Put an image of a cod next to one of a polar bear and the votes will probably come pouring in for the Arctic beasts. This captivating furry icon of the natural world needs every inch of our support, and inspires people to protect the environment around us. But at WWF we don’t just work on the icons. We care for every creature, including those that are less pleasing to the eye – or less well known. And that includes the cod and other species in European waters that currently face an uncertain future.
Hence why you go to the Adopt an Animal page and see elephants, orangutans, turtles and penguins. Animals that will appeal to you and me. In the process of saving these animals, we save their whole ecosystem, the entire balance of nature. And what Oliver Steeds and his ridiculous programme fail to realise or acknowledge is that the £3 a month I give to adopt a tiger does not go straight to the tigers in India and Russia. The £3 a month I give is most likely fairly distributed to the many projects and conservation efforts around the world, depending on what is in greatest urgency at the time. Funding is not restricted from any animal, just because its picture isn’t displayed on the website front page.
Not every conservation organization is perfect. Ridiculous programmes like this, which have been poorly researched and poorly executed, undermine the amazing work each and every organization goes through in the mission to help save our planet. What really took the biscuit was when Steeds flew to somewhere in America (I think this may have been about his 10th flight in the hour programme?) to get ninety seconds of footage from a woman who claimed she had been on a board who was trying to collaborate with BP. Her friend had stood up and said ‘why are we working with BP? they’re so evil!’, and, she claims, ‘the whole room fell silent’. Wow, Steeds, well done. You have footage of a woman who made an opinion, and the room was shocked. What a programme.
On the WWF discussion page for this programme [click here], Belcha fabulously said: “Maybe Oliver Steeds should have focussed his 1hr documentary on the plight of termites….I wonder how many people would have still been watching after 20 minutes.” Yes, Steeds, we did notice your 3 minute coverage of a mountain frog in your attempt to draw attention to the plight of amphibians, but how quickly this was dwarfed by your footage and coverage of tigers and lions throughout the programme. Thank you for proving that marketability of cute cuddly felines is what draws the crowds. It’s a shame you couldn’t use this same marketing to actually help the conservation ‘movement’, instead of projecting your poorly researched sensationalism onto our television screens.
