green economy

MaryW commented on the word green economy

For the first half-hour that Edna Molewa, the honorable minister of environmental affairs (South Africa), speaks, we hear words like "bioprospecting" but not words like "biodiversity." To bioprospect is to scout out "green gold," plants and animals of commercial value.

"We need to improve the infrastructure of our national parks, to facilitate bioprospecting" says the minister. This is in the spirit of the "green economy" and "job creation," important buzzwords in the country's "new sustainable economy." South Africa, one of the 17 megadiverse countries—those that together account for 70 percent of Earth's biodiversity—is just one of many nations with recent bioprospecting legislation.

Katarzyna Nowak, "Rhinos Under the Gun," American Scholar, Summer 2016, p. 6, at p. 9.

July 2, 2016