One of the themes in this room is vision and hope, of which there seems to be precious little these days. It would help if the media reported more of the success stories, but then they have to hear about them in order to do that.
Consumers need to hear some of the current controversy about where the aid dollars have ended up and perhaps those in the beef industry need to hear it as well in order to set aside any assumptions and get the straight goods.
I wonder about where our organizations are and why they aren't fighting more to have things accomplished. I know that the beef industry has done some, but in the sheep industry I have yet to hear anything that the Canadian Sheep Federation is doing in terms of trying to get the border open for lamb. I pay check off dollars there and even my provincial association has been strangely silent about letting us know what is going on.
One of the things that really concerns me is this whole deal about the bluetongue and anaplasmosis. Now, I can't believe that people really buy into the notion that if we open up the border for that, the U.S. will reciprocate and the border be opened to cattle. If there are people who do believe that, then I'd like some of whatever they are on.
As stated in another thread, bluetongue affects sheep and goats more readily than some of the other species. Now we have a fairly stable population of Big Horn Sheep and to a lesser extent Mountain Goats. This is part of our heritage and a great symbol of what Canada stands for and why people come to visit the Rockies.
What would we even consider jeopardizing them for? We need to protect the biodiversity that we so readily take for granted. I would like to see the generations of tomorrow be able to look out and see what we have been privy to all these years.
I was at a conference yesterday on biodiversity and one of the speakers was from the former Yugoslavia and he said he cannot believe what we take for granted every day. We are decimating our forested areas at a far greater pace than even the rain forest is disappearing and we seem to be looking the other way because we can make money from certain industries.
Do we need such a high standard of living that we have to destroy the richness that we have inherited and is ours to pass on to the next generation?
My vision is to leave this place a little better than what I found it, but that seems to be a bit hard at the moment. We are rich in biodiversity, but we seem to be getting poorer every day.
How do we get people to truly appreciate what we have been so blessed with?
Consumers need to hear some of the current controversy about where the aid dollars have ended up and perhaps those in the beef industry need to hear it as well in order to set aside any assumptions and get the straight goods.
I wonder about where our organizations are and why they aren't fighting more to have things accomplished. I know that the beef industry has done some, but in the sheep industry I have yet to hear anything that the Canadian Sheep Federation is doing in terms of trying to get the border open for lamb. I pay check off dollars there and even my provincial association has been strangely silent about letting us know what is going on.
One of the things that really concerns me is this whole deal about the bluetongue and anaplasmosis. Now, I can't believe that people really buy into the notion that if we open up the border for that, the U.S. will reciprocate and the border be opened to cattle. If there are people who do believe that, then I'd like some of whatever they are on.
As stated in another thread, bluetongue affects sheep and goats more readily than some of the other species. Now we have a fairly stable population of Big Horn Sheep and to a lesser extent Mountain Goats. This is part of our heritage and a great symbol of what Canada stands for and why people come to visit the Rockies.
What would we even consider jeopardizing them for? We need to protect the biodiversity that we so readily take for granted. I would like to see the generations of tomorrow be able to look out and see what we have been privy to all these years.
I was at a conference yesterday on biodiversity and one of the speakers was from the former Yugoslavia and he said he cannot believe what we take for granted every day. We are decimating our forested areas at a far greater pace than even the rain forest is disappearing and we seem to be looking the other way because we can make money from certain industries.
Do we need such a high standard of living that we have to destroy the richness that we have inherited and is ours to pass on to the next generation?
My vision is to leave this place a little better than what I found it, but that seems to be a bit hard at the moment. We are rich in biodiversity, but we seem to be getting poorer every day.
How do we get people to truly appreciate what we have been so blessed with?
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