WEISS'S NOTEBOOK

No Bailout for Biodiversity

Stimulus Funds Can Help Neither Pandas Nor Porcupines

I was struck the other day by a pair of funny but disconcerting Public Service videos zipping around the Web, produced by the Wildlife Conservation Society in support of the Coalition of Living Museums—a gaggle of 76 New York State zoos, botanical gardens, and aquariums. The videos raise the alarm that Governor David A. Paterson, who already cut funding for these educational institutions by 55 percent this year, has now called for a complete elimination of their state support in the coming year.

In one of the videos, the camera zooms in on a personnel manager at the Bronx Zoo delivering bad news to an off-camera character. “I’m sure you’ve heard that Governor Paterson’s proposed budget will mean severe cuts here at the Bronx Zoo and the New York Aquarium,” the somber official says. “So … even though you bring record numbers of people to New York and help the economy, we’re going to have to let you go.”

Only then does the camera pan to the dejected victim of this lay-off—a porcupine from one of the exhibits. A damn cute one at that.

A second video (both were made at virtually no cost by zoo staffers) features the jobless porcupine—whose real-life name, it turns out, is “Wednesday”—visiting the unemployment office as part of her sorry search for work. “Alright,” the case worker asks, looking up from Wednesday’s resume, “how are you with PowerPoint?”

Maybe I wouldn’t have been so touched by the plights of these institutions and their resident menageries had I not just spent the breakfast hour reading newspaper articles about the way the federal bailout’s been going. Those bonuses going to fat-cats was galling, of course. But also the news that AIG is suing the U.S. government (that’s right, suing its majority owner) because—catch this—it is peeved that the IRS did not give it a big enough tax break for its offshore tax havens. What sheer testicular chutzpah, using bailout money to pay lawyers to sue the government that saved you!

Even an unemployed porcupine knows better than to bite the hand that bailed it.

It was while I was mulling the unfairness of it all—the squandering of wealth on the one hand and, on the other hand, the squeeze being put on New York’s living museums of nature—that I learned a final detail about the bailout that really sent me, lemming-like, over the psychological edge:

Section 1604 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 makes it explicitly illegal to appropriate even a dollar of bailout money to aquariums or zoos (or any “gambling establishment,” either, though I don’t get the connection. Maybe they meant “gamboling,” which some zoo animals do).

That is when it really sunk in for me that human beings are the problem, and that the way to make the most of this bailout is to earmark it exclusively for non-human species.

Consider that the Bronx zoo, which is the largest single employer of youth in the Bronx and brings in millions of dollars every year to one of the most underserved neighborhoods in the country. Consider, too, that taken together, the 76 New York zoos, botanical gardens and aquariums sponsoring Wednesday-the-Porcupine’s viral video debut attract more than 12 million visitors each year—people who spend large sums in surrounding enterprises during their visits. Under the 2008-2009 budget, the state will contribute a mere 35 cents or so per visitor in support of these institutions—surely a tiny investment relative to the economic payoff, not to mention the educational and entertainment value of these venues.

Nationally, according to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, the group’s 200 member institutions generate a whopping $7.6 billion in economic activity every year, while employing 100,000 people (not to mention a small army of porcupines and other critters). As for the ancillary benefits, the prestigious National Research Council concluded in January that informal science education venues such as zoos and aquariums are “integral” elements of the nation’s science education system. “We’re actually out there informing people about science,” said John Calvelli, a vice president with the Wildlife Conservation Society, which runs the zoo and the New York Aquarium. “We help people understand complex science issues.”

It isn’t cheap to run these joints, either. It costs real money, for example, to remove the 500 pounds of elephant waste produced per pachyderm per day. Talk about shovel ready…

Of course, zoos and the like should not be the only beneficiaries of my Biodiversity Bailout. Arguably, far more should go to non-human species living in the wild. Heaven knows—as does a growing cadre of environmental economists—that Mother Nature is on the verge of planetary homelessness and could use a handout. At $780 billion, the bailout pales in comparison to, say, the $2 trillion to $5 trillion dollars that, according to a European Union analysis, is the value of annual forest loss around the world.

Or look at it the way Jaboury Ghazoul does. In an article in the January 23 issue of Science (subscription required), Jaboury, of the Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems in Zurich, calculated the benefits of distributing a $700 billion bailout evenly among Earth’s estimated 10 million species. The resulting $7,000 per species could easily make the difference between survival and extinction for some.

“Consider the jellyfish tree Medusagyne oppositifolia from the Seychelles,” Jaboury wrote. “Even $70,000 should be enough to save its few remaining individuals … by investing in simple nursery facilities and a modest propagation and planting program.”

And what a bonanza for communities of multiple species. “The intertidal bryozoans of Scotland’s West Coast would alone receive more than $3 million,” Jaboury concluded. “The 43 species of ants from E. O. Wilson’s single leguminous tree at the Tambopata Reserve in Peru could pool their resources to buy about 150,000 hectares of Amazonian forest (at $20 per hectare).”

Well, maybe and maybe not. But one thing’s for sure: These animals are not going to use the money to sue you.

Rick Weiss is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and Science Progress.

Tags: biodiversity, funding

Comments on this article

You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.