A couple of days ago, I presented at a project Mastermind by the local government to lobby for win-win situations between humans and nature that also make a profit.
Why profit?
Because businesses, especially large international businesses, have much more money than both, the local government and the nature/animal activists together, and when they can be activated to protect the environment, they can do that on a much larger scale than anyone else. But they are businesses - they will not chip in unless they benefit in some major way, and that benefit usually lies in the reduction of risk, or in increased profit.
It's how the world works.
And there are a huge number of examples by now, where businesses have found win-win situations with the environment that truly benefitted both, without any greenwashing whatsoever, starting from food companies to companies that like Suntory, whose main business is not nature protection but beverages, but who started buying nature reserves and woodlands 20 years ago to protect the groundwater, which is their biggest resource.
Did Suntory do that because they wanted to protect nature? I don't know.
But I am pretty sure that the newt that is still alive and happily swimming in its pond does not care why Suntory did this, and it will not care either whether they made a profit by protecting his nature reserve - all the newt knows is that he is still alive. Or she. I don't like "it", because I do know that animals have souls, and calling animals "it" was historically done to justify abuse. But that's another story.
So yes, I am one of those animal lovers, too. In fact, I have saved and even given a home to dozens of animals in the past, I took the bicycle uphill to school 35 years ago already to protect the climate, and I sure paid for my convictions when working in corporate environments, too.
So, I am all for protecting nature, and I have walked my talk for decades.
So, a couple of days ago I am presenting in this Mastermind by the local government, but the first thing I hear from the nature activist there is "No, when there is a profit made with nature protection, then I am out!!!".
Now, I do understand that profit can attract the "wrong kind of people", and I have seen that happen and corrupt a business that was very beneficial for a long time. But if I reject profit in general, what do I achieve as a nature activist?
I make sure that I will never succeed.
Why?
Think about it.
What do nature activists want to achieve?
They want to achieve that business does the right thing, does not do harm to nature, and ideally even protects nature.
But the second businesses do so, and there is just the littlest smidge of profit in it, some activists immediately tear down the effort AND the company "because the company only did it to make a profit"!!!
That may or may not be true, but so what if it was true?
The metaphorical newt does not mind. He just wants to live, and live without suffering.
By stopping the company in its efforts by destroy their brand and reputation, you are effectively killing the newt.
Is that really what we want?
Better a dead newt than praising a CEO who isn't the perfect human being yet, or a company that may not be entirely pure in motive? Remember, the newt is a metaphor and stands for animals and nature - so better accellerated climate change, animals suffering and being killed even faster than giving someone credit who does not have the perfect motive in our eyes?
What are we really protecting here?
It isn't the newt, or animals, or nature.
In fact, we will intentionally martyr ourselves by attacking that company - and nature right along with us.
I don't think the newt will appreciate that.
Of course, it would be my ideal, too, if everybody on earth was perfectly altruistic towards people and animals and nature, too, but I don't see that happening in the next 20 years. So rather than rejecting everything that is not perfect yet, why not praise the baby for hitting the toilet some of the time, even if it still occasionally pees on the floor.
Don't get me wrong, I do honor people who didn't "sell out", who rather accepted the consequences than do the wrong thing, I have often enough done that myself. I am also aware that there were people who were much better than me, who stood by their principles and oftentimes paid a high price for it.
That is an honorable effort and I absolutely applaud that.
I also do understand the principle we all heard in church that the right hand should not know what the left hand is doing when we are giving charitably, i.e. we should not brag about our good deeds.
But that's not what nature and animal protection is about.
It's not about producing perfect people with perfect motives.
It's certainly not about "us" telling "them" that we are better than them, because we helped animals without making a profit.
Nature and animal protection is not about me, not about us at all.
It's about nature and the animals. And yes, it is also about people because all is connected, but while that is the primary benefit for most people today, that is a secondary benefit for me and a lot of the old guard.
So, if it is about nature and the animals, let's not stand in the way when help suddenly arrives!
And if Saul turns to Paul and starts helping me help the animals, then I won't reject his efforts because he made my life difficult for the last 35 years and killed those whom I loved - instead, I am grateful that he is helping now!
If it's not about me, but about the animals.
Am I going to watch Paul whether he is really Paul and not still Saul underneath?
Sure I will. But I will do the same with my fellow animal activist, especially if he starts sabotaging animal and nature protection to soothe his ego, even if he doesn't even realize that this is what he is doing. And I will watch the activist very closely who is only a part of the movement because he really likes to have something to fight. There are those, too.
The world is not black and white. I wish it was.
There are a lot of very, very good and beautiful people in animal rights and envrionmentalist movements. People need to be acknowledged for what they have done in the past, and for the huge contributions they have made to society, even just by keeping the flame alive in an atmosphere where this wasn't easy, and nature and animal activists have certainly done that.
Some of them have been very effective as well - and some of the most effective have looked for win-win situations between the animals they wanted to protect and the people who were initially fighting them for a long time. They just phrased it differently. If I make sure that the communities who have been poaching animals or cutting down trees can make a living by protecting these animals instead, then I have found a win-win situation that also makes profit - profit might not be my primary motive here, but it might be the motive for a local poacher who hangs his rifle into the shed in exchange for a job as a ranger that is less dangerous and pays enough to reliably feed his family.
But for some of us, it is time to come out of the guerilla camp and come into the light.
Become part of the leadership instead of part of the opposition.
The other side now knows that there is something to what we have always said. So let's come together, instead of fight each other.
Let's see how we can work together for a better world.
Did most companies do everything for profit in the past? Yes. But that profit can come in really handy now if we want to achieve something bigger than we ever did in the past.
There was another question that came up during the discussion:
"Can you do good and still make a profit from it?"
The automatic response of nature activists is oftentimes a resounding "no!!!"
And it is an automatic response, because that is what we were taught.
But is that really true?
What does a doctor do?
What does your dentist do?
Is there abuse? Of course there is.
There are doctors and dentists who charge too much. And some of them hate their patients and only went into medicine because of the money and the prestige. I'd say most of them did not and are caring and compassionate people, but there are no doubt those out there who are not.
But we still go to the doctor, and to the hospital, and we do not expect the doctor to work for free.
We praise him or her if they do, but nobody expects him or her to do that full-time.
How could he support his family if he would?
How could she buy the more expensive diagnostic tools if she would charge pennies?
It is no different with nature and animal protection - if people are allowed to find a way to profit from it financially as well, they can do so much more than we can do, when we do it in our spare time with the little money we have left over.
You can only scale something that is profitable, including in the field of nature protection, animal protection, and climate change.
So let's remember who we are fighting for - it is animals and nature.
And if somebody makes a profit while helping those we care for, let's celebrate it as a win-win - because the more win-win there will be, the more animals and nature will be protected!
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