MalleusMaior

but popes are bred to aggressively seek territory and hierarchical power, not potential mates. so anytime you see something like this, it's still very much a standard threat display

Without due process for rapists, all it takes is the government saying you're a rapist and suddenly you can be guilty of whatever they want. It won't matter, because you don't get your day in court anymore. You don't get to argue for your defense, or know what evidence they have against you, or have a lawyer to help you understand the legalese and what options you have, or ANYTHING.

We don't even need to say that women lie about rape to any significant degree (because statistics show they so rarely do), because the government could just make up a woman and claim she made a report. You wouldn't know, because you don't get due process and therefore do not get to confront your accuser.

I don’t choose my clients, but I Chose to not choose my clients. That’s the point. The point is it’s everyone who needs the help, no matter what they’ve done, no matter what they’re accused of doing.

If I chose my clients, that means deciding who is worthy and who is not, and I am simply not interested in making that choice. I refuse to place one life above another. That’s what cops and fascists and racists and oppressors do.

We need to make sure the POLICE aren't breaking the law, acting without cause, etc, BEFORE that "magic box" proves their guilty. because everything a cop does is against an innocent person; that's what innocent until proven guilty MEANS. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS PREEMPTIVE JUSTICE.

The local Malagasy people are dealing with extreme poverty and food insecurity, with nearly half of children under five years old suffering from chronic malnutrition. The local people have always subsisted on hunting wildlife for food, and as Madagascar’s wildlife population declines, the people who rely on so-called bushmeat to survive are struggling more and more. People are literally starving.

Our conservation team thought about this a lot. They had initially intended to focus efforts on education but came to understand that this is not an issue arising from a lack of knowledge. For these people it is a question of survival. It doesn’t matter how many times a foreigner tells you not to eat an animal you’ve hunted your entire life, if your child is starving you are going to do everything in your power to keep your family alive.

So the vets changed course. Rather than focus efforts on simply teaching people about lemurs, they decided to try and use veterinary medicine to reduce the underlying issue of food insecurity. They supposed that if a reliable protein source could be introduced for the people who needed it, the dependence on meat from wildlife would greatly decrease. So they got to work establishing new flocks of chickens in the most at-risk communities, and also initiated an aggressive vaccination program for Newcastle disease (an infectious illness of poultry that is of particular concern in this area). They worked with over 600 households to ensure appropriate husbandry and vaccination for every flock, and soon found these communities were being transformed by the introduction of a steady protein source. Families with a healthy flock of chickens were far less likely to hunt wild animals like lemurs, and fewer kids went hungry. Thats what we call a win-win situation.

This chicken vaccine program became just one small part of an amazing conservation outreach initiative in Madagascar that puts local people at the center of everything they do. Helping these vulnerable communities of people helps similarly vulnerable wildlife, always. If we go into a country guns-blazing with that fire for conservation in our hearts and a plan to save native animals, we simply cannot ignore the humans who live around them. Doing so is counterintuitive to creating an effective plan because whether we recognize it or not, humans and animals are inextricably linked in many ways. A true conservation success story is one that doesn’t leave needy humans in its wake, and that is why I think this particular story has stuck with me for so long.

(Source 1)

(Source 2- cool video exploring this initiative from some folks involved)

But on top of that, you know who the most ardent conservationists are once security has been achieved? The people who had once been forced to poach or slash-and-burn to survive. You know who’s great at tracking down gorilla poachers? Ex-poachers. Who’s good at understanding and advocating for people forced to do these things to survive? Ex-poachers. Who can convince others to take a chance on finding a better way to survive? Same answer.

The former illegal fishers are now sought-after experts, because they know how to spot the arapaima and tell juveniles apart from adults. They get to keep practicing the fishing skills that were passed down to them. The actual process of fishing is easier because they can work together and don't have to sneak around. The profits are higher because they can sell the fish openly to restaurants and to the public. The fishing organization members make sure that other people in their communities don't fish illegally. And the numbers of arapaima keep going up and up, so there's plenty to go around even as more people join the fishing organizations.

If you click all the way through to the report from the conservation org that started the fishing organizations project, there are quotes from fishing organization members:

"We built a second house and I'm putting my oldest two kids through college on the money we get from fishing."

"Nowadays you have young people walking around with pockets full of cash saying "I got 6,000 from fishing this year!" It used to be you wouldn't even get 50 reais of pocket money."

additional article:

Hold on I just. Oh my god we might be able to CURE ASTHMA!! Hundreds of kids die EVERY YEAR from asthma attacks, I cannot count the number of times I'VE almost died due to asthma. It's terrifying, some of my earliest memories are of horrific asthma attacks, they were so bad my mom thought I had whooping cough. Not to mention the social isolation, the torture that is gym class, kids might not have to put up with that anymore!!

- vegetables

- function arguments