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Oostvaardersplassen en het boek #Zoopolis
Hieronder een gedeelte uit het boek Zoopolis, A political Theory of Animal Rights, geschreven door Sue Donaldson en Will Kymlicka. Een revolutionair boekwerk met een vooruitziende blik op “Hoe gaan we in de toekomst met dieren om, of ze nu gedomesticeerd zijn of wild?”. En in dit boek spreekt men van " volwaardige natuurgebieden (zonder een hek)" voor zover die er nog zijn, en niet van een gecultiveerd, artificieel, afgesloten gebiedje met wat dieren onder de naam “de Oostvaardersplassen. "
Pagina 186: "Often ecological theorists have taken a harder line than AR (Animal Rights) theorists regarding the inadmissibility of human interventions in process of "nature". This is strongly motivated by fallibility concerns (i.e., humans will inevitably do more harm than good), but it is also motivated by a strain of anti-sentimentalism. According to this macho strain in ecological thought, nature's laws are harsh, and it is weakness and squeamishness to wish otherwise.
Individual acts of compassion towards individual animals can't change the overall framework, so they are a futile form of sentimental sloppiness even if they don't lead to actual harm to animals or ecology. The desire to carry out such acts betrays a lack of understanding of nature, even a hatred of nature's processes (Hettinger 1994).
There are many problems with this view. For starters, it is wrong to suggest that deploring certain aspects of nature (e.g. that animals suffer) amounts to a hatred of nature per se.
Second, such a view rests on an implicit and indefensible assumption about humans and their actions being outside of nature: our empathetic response (het willen helpen en voeren van de grazers) to the suffering of other species is itself a part of human nature, and is a response shared by other species as well (e.g. wild dolphins who help rescue humans).
Third, it betrays callousness towards the fate of individuals. The fact that one cannot change natural processes of predation of food cycles, and hence cannot change the fate of animals on a large scale, doesn't mean that acts of caring towards individual animals are irrelevant or inconsistent. Such acts mean everything to the animal who has been fed, or rescued after falling through the ice ( het uit het ijs trekken van het paard ).
Some ecologists are led into this error because of the way they reify -even sanctify- nature's laws or (non human) ecological processes. This is very different from the theory advanced here that animal communities must be respected as sovereign and self-determining.
Respect for wild animal sovereignty is not just letting them be. Sovereignty is critical for protecting the freedom, autonomy, and flourishing of wild animals, and in general this means that humans should be very cautious about intervening in nature.
However, there are many kinds of assistance that do not compromise wild animal sovereignty. We have canvassed several - from efforts to avert natural disasters to small-scale acts of compassion and assistance - that do not undermine the sovereignty of wild animal communities. Far from being misguided or inconsistent acts of sentimentality, we would argue that those interventions are demanded by compassion (as thoughtful response to another's suffering) and justice.
The sovereignty of wild animals helps explain why we have these two impulses:
a) to leave nature in general to its own ways (preserving the space in which animals exercise agency to determine the course of their lives, and the future of their communities without humans 'calling the shots' (NB in de Oostvaardersplassen is dit niet het geval want door het plaatsen van hekken heeft de mens juist een hele fundamentele impact op het kunnen bepalen van hun eigen leven en toekomst. Bovendien kan het afschieten, een menselijke handeliing/inbreuk in het leven van deze dieren, niet gezien worden als natuurlijke selectie); while
b) nevertheless responding in a time- and /or scale-limited fashion in order to reduce suffering or avert disaster (oftewel te grote kuddes op een te klein gebied/uithongering op grote schaal bij langdurige aanhoudende koude winters), having carefully considered the consequences of doing so (het verhaal van uithongerende dieren begint volgend jaar weer opnieuw zelfs zonder bijvoeren).
These impulses are not inconsistent, but rather, a reflection of a careful balancing of important values (autonomy and freedom on the one hand; the alleviation of suffering on the other) that frequently come into conflict in the wilderness where animals are not in the circumstances of justice with one another.” (waarbij zou moeten worden toegevoegd dat de OVP géén echt natuurlijk gebied is of wildernis is , gezien het menselijk ingrijpen in en het aanpassen van bijna alle natuurlijke processen in het gebied)