REMEMBER ENVIRONMENTALISTS
April 21 was designated the first annual Earth Day starting in 1970. I was there at the Washington Monument in 1970 for the celebration. April 21 is also Queen Elizabeth’s birthday, and mine, but that day was picked because it is John Muir’s birthday. Muir was one of the greatest environmentalists ever.
He was the driving force behind Yosemite, the second national park in world history (The first was Yellowstone, created with General Sheridan’s help, but that’s another story). Both are in the United States. After those two parks were established, national parks were created in many countries around the world.
When Muir was a young man, he moved from Scotland to California in the late 19th century. Today’s 10 largest formally protected areas in the world were all formally designated in this century.
The top five, by size, are each larger than 1 million square kilometres. They are:
1. Ross Sea Marine Reserve in Antarctica
2. Papahanaumokuakea in the Pacific Ocean (designated by former US president George W Bush)
3. Natural Park of the Coral Sea (France)
4. Pacific Remote Islands (designated by former US president Barack Obama)
5. South Georgia at South Atlantic Ocean region (Britain)
The next five on the list were officially designated by Australia, Greenland/Denmark, British Indian Ocean Territories, Algeria and Kiribati respectively.
Thailand, the US and all other countries worldwide honour certain types of people with accolades. They honour movie actors and actresses with golden statues. They honour rich business people with certificates and easy loans.
They honour military generals with garish medallions, and so on.
However, environmentalists are unimportant from governments’ perspective. Their stories aren’t studied at schools or universities. There are no parks, bridges, roads, universities or buildings named after environmentalists. But that’s OK. Environmentalists don’t want to be given glittering statuettes or have airports named for them. They want plants and animals to be given a chance to exist in their natural environment and not be bulldozed over for apartment complexes and shopping malls.
They would rather leave a legacy of forests and clean rivers/oceans than giant buildings and toxicity. An environmentalist would rather see alternative/ clean power plants being built, than coal burning factories.
As for newspapers, they devote entire sections to corporate sports, cars, real estate and fashion bling, but barely any column inches to environment-related topics.
Come on, Bangkok Post, let’s see an environmental section, showcasing things like alternative energy innovations, parks, tree planting, cleaning oceans, etc.
Don’t say there isn’t enough environmental news or that readers aren’t as interested in such things, because you (editors and others) know there are a wealth of topics that are under-reported.
Ken Albertsen (planted an average of a tree/day for the past 18 years in Thailand)
Chiang Rai