We see the earnest desperate emotional programmes stirringly stating that we must do all we can to preserve these creatures or this habitat, preceded by brilliantly beautiful footage covering their life and lifestyles at all angles – we are thrilled to bits at the stunning sights.
However I have contacted David Attenborough several times to say I have an idea to save species from extinction, although I have been bothered over the years to view and learn from his multiple programmes, and listen to loads of end of programme moans about the plight of everything, neither he, nor his staff, can be bothered to read nor respond to this short piece, perhaps they have more interests in persistent pains of flora and fauna world wide, personally I think that’s a bit sick.
Also and on the other hand to the thrills of paragraph one, we view with disgust the trophy hunters, their bounty of booty in the currency of the kill. They are sickly notching up scores based on the rarity of the animal, a bit like feathers in the bonnets of ladies at the turn of the century, no, not the millennium – way, way back further than that to the one before, where they showed off harder to find rarer ones, killing off the beauties in the real world – glorying in death – two World Wars were to follow, they were not so thrilled when their own died off. Trophy Hunters equally do not care, but they are far, far less ignorant of what they are doing or how they are playing the part of causing extinctions, so much sicker when you think of the extreme over-population of homo sapiens, or so-called sapiens, because that clearly is not wise, and is so selfish. They post selfies online – seriously selfish selfies, with the poor dead animal in front of them with them grinning like someone deranged with devilish delirium right by, this is not right, there is no contest when all they used was the stick of a gun, and that, quite frankly sticks in my throat.
One thing that really gets to me, a niggle, is that the over-emotional you’ve got to save this, that and the other is that this is coming from presenters and other people who are very rich. You also have patronising youth who go on gap years – in between school and university – to do ‘charitable’ work to ‘look after’ the wildlife, and say and think “Why don’t these people look after these wonderful creatures? Don’t they value them?” in a tone of dismissive voice in that the volunteer doesn’t really value ‘these people’ she / he thinks that they are the scum of the earth, although they will come up with over the top laudating praise for them and about how they endure and that we can learn a lot from them and their simple life, you know OMG – Oh My God – I learnt so much more from them than they learnt from us! Et cetera… Those that do this ‘work’ do it because they can afford it, they can afford the time off, they have had the huge privilege of an extended education which will continue to continue on and on and they know that in the back of their minds. In many ways this work is fun, it is one long holiday for them.
Another irony is that while these superior sorts are instructing the locals elsewhere to keep their big beasts the history of total extinction of all our comparable animals which used to roam freely across our lands is rather conveniently forgotten – it is an edited history – there is even a nimbyism about dogs here (we would not have survived the Palaeolithic period without them) – a zero tolerance to animals in any way disrupting our lives – pest control brought in rather than sharing our lives with other creatures whose homes used to be where our homes now are situated, we are like a pile of immovable poo on their lives.
For the poor people it is another matter. They have to make a living just to survive somehow or other. And as I’ve just inferred, they have done very well for all of us and the diversity of creation for our children’s future, just by keeping these animals alive. Surely that is worth something? They put up with their crops being eaten up, their homesteads being damaged. And for this they derive no livelihood. That is not really fair is it? Not at all, not Fair Trade, a bit of a dud deal, especially when we go into mega-lecture mode and burn all their ivory with no compensation for it – what is the point of that – does it do any good – no, not really, I have seen 2 different bonfires of this in my lifetime at least, so the elephants died for nothing. They may as well have sold it and improved things from then on. Yes, you have a case to stop the trade – you could have just given it away for free to crash the market to devalue it, making the commodity rarer is illogical, as there is more incentive to kill to make more money. It’s a very negative alchemy.
This could all be turned around. And not just for big beasts of the land, for All Wildlife to Have a Worth in Money for its Existence.
So if your people have a herd of elephants, or even more rare a family of giraffes, roaming around your area their number and characteristics i.e. age and gender would be noted and given a value taking into consideration the species type, its rarity, the level of disruption both social and economic this animal’s presence causes to humans – so if we are talking lions and tigers, wolves and bears security and safety are costs that need to be borne. So a basic equation is Age + Gender x Rarity + Security (the generic term I’d use for all disruptor factors) = the Amount Paid out for that Animal per Annum. Other factors can be added in. So you’ll be in the money as a community, as your commodity increases in value by increasing in number. We will encourage this, for example in sea creatures, so to not kill whales would mean a whale of a time financially, it really would pay off to save the whales, like saving money in a bank account, that accrues interest. This money would be paid through a central international fund, paid via individual countries obligations which could be from Wildlife Charities there, an obvious example is the World Wide Fund for Nature & Wildlife, the WWF – not the Worldwide Wrestling Foundation which had to alter its name as it was too WWF – but the fights and battles are not dissimilar! We have to wrestle with this for the diversity of wild life for our children’s beautiful future. 
There will be fights, and there will be the need to kill cullers of rare species, humans are far from rare, in fact their overpopulation and proliferation to denudation of the planet is causing this problem so to make one (sub) human extinct will not exactly make us all die out, but to not kill a killer of these rarer creatures will make them all die out. Fighter Army Wildlife Rangers will be where a good proportion of where the money goes for each animal, probably about 50% this could go to locals to be employed just to keep these rarities alive, the other 50% is compensation for the local area given to the locals, so when their homesteads are ruined they can repair them and acquire secure storage for valuables, and when their crops are raided it does not bother them, as they have the funds to feed themselves with at the shops from food grown elsewhere.
These funds need not be solely restricted to animals, plants could also gain protection this way. For example Rain Forest Trees – the rarer the more money each individual tree gains for the landowner just by being there alive – they can choose to get one lump sum by cutting it down and lose long term, as they gain interest over time, and more as it ages and grows, money rings a bell in their head that it is worth more that way. And they still retain their investment, a genuine Money Tree!
If someone has a huge tree in their neighbourhood, particularly if it is blocking some of their light – they could be paid for this. Trees and bushes and fields and other aspects could be given a financial gain just for their very presence, so a Council or community would be incentivised to keep that Green area by money, and could equally or more than equally to act as a disincentive to development be fined heavily if it is ruined or lost. The same should apply to hedgehog conservation for example in Europe, where if you are created a habitat and access to your garden by not erecting a fence you could get a council tax reduction, whereas if you lay paving or decking or stones, so no water can flow or nothing can grow or live there you will be billed. So a carrot and stick approach here.
Marx summed it up beautifully in stating in his works that it all comes down to money. You pay your money you make your choice.
I too need to be paid for this work, it took time to think it through, and time is money, and I have bills to pay too, I am not rich, I am not yet free from my chains.