Battle for the migratory birds

Green

Well, dear President Trump hasn’t quite built the wall to keep the Mexicans out, but he’s figured he can do something else destructive: stop Americans from enjoying migratory birds.

Luckily, the Natural Resources Defense Counci (NRDC) and other environmental organisations are suing to prevent this. What the American government has done is to ‘loosen’ the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, 1918, according to a press release of the NRDC.

Basically, the treaty prohibits the taking (which means killing) migratory birds. What’s changed now is that killing is interpreted as intentional, not the many tacit industrial killings that could take place.

One example NRDC offers is of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion, when the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico killed more than a million birds. BP and several other firms had to pay billions in dollars in fine, which were then used in conservation elsewhere.

Under the newly reinterpreted law, companies wouldn’t have had to. There won’t be any incentive for any industry to care for birds anymore.

This is an act of shameless theft from the planet. But it’s worse, because it sets the global precedence to undo environmental protection for bio-diversity. Big corporates get teeth to fight for it, and those who battle for tighter laws have less weapons in their armoury.

I hope NRDC and allies win, because then, we’ll be able to show that even in dark times globally, protecting birds was found to be a task important enough to tick off the American President’s understanding.

NEW DELHI: