Shahab Sabahi
Energy and Environment for Development – Policy Analysis Research Group
Aljazeera news held a panel to discuss a controversial proposition:
“Is it time to consider shifting efforts away from saving some of the world's most famous species?”
The program claims that in a recent survey of nearly six hundred scientists involved in wildlife protection, sixty percent agreed with the idea of shifting efforts away from species that are too difficult or too costly to preserve in the wild.
If this proposition is converted into a policy, it would have both moral and environmental implications. Unsurprisingly opposition rejects the proposition and argues that it is absolutely immoral to make the species survival value judgment basing on the business fundamentals and prefer one species at the expense of another. Inevitably, this view is a perfect and rich-virtue attitude.
From idealistic viewpoint, the best policy is the one that addresses the needs of all or at least majority. However realistic perspective underscores few shortcomings in the counter proposition which may raise a couple of questions such as “how can one make value judgment out of the business fundamentals when the species protection needs resources and resource allocation and would be costly?”
Imagine a situation, having scarce financial resources, morality and environmental conscience level high, many people suffer hungers, famines, and water diseases, climate change and environmental degradation threaten, and extinction of some species imminent and no one wishes to forgo its basic rights and needs, so
where should funds be invested? How should policymakers set priorities? In the real world, is it feasible to adopt and design a collective policy to favor the protection of all species while people are desperately in need?
Perhaps priority setting and value judgments are the most subjective and controversial areas of study in the realm of policy analysis and policy making process. Both significantly influence the implications of policies. Despite this consciousness and the acknowledgment that the international community lacks a universal source for value judgment where international public goods matters, a little, for profoundly understanding them, has been conducted by research community. They deserve more research contributions.
