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Thursday, April 7, 2005

What's Good for the Goose

On KGW News at 6, one of the stories concerned the damage done to farms on Suave Island by migrating geese. Environmental Reporter Vince Patton stated that area farmers want more state and federal assistance to control the goose population, including allowing increased hunting to pare down numbers.

Well, that WAS their position before they met up with representatives from several native communities in Alaska. Their Alaskan counterparts stated that the geese are an important part of the diet for some of the most impoverished communities in the nation. Cutting back on goose populations in Oregon would have a negative effect on such communities.

Two things struck me about this report. First, by bringing together people at both ends of the geographic (or philosophical) spectrum, it allowed both sides the opportunity to see the situation from the other's point of view. This is an exercise we should try to replicate in more situations.

As I've written before, it's far easier to demonize or trivialize someone else or their viewpoint IF they remain the faceless other. When we merely guess or theorize about a position different from our own we tend to impute motivations that often are inaccurate. In time, these manufactured inaccuracies become part of the truth for us. Even when it is later shown that certain facets of our beliefs about the situation are wrong, we nevertheless find it difficult to let go of the picture we've conjured up in our own minds.

By meeting face-to-face and being genuinely open to try to understand things from a different point of view, we build bridges in place of walls. We all should know that a bridge can span a divide, while a wall cannot.

The second aspect of this report that immediately sprung to mind was the farmer's initial idea of a "battle plan" to combat the geese. Why is that we humans are always quick to want to minimize other populations except our own?

Instead of seeking funding to limit goose populations, why not seek funds to mitigate the damage caused by the geese? If a farmer plants his crop and the migrating flocks settle in the farmer's field, why not recompense the farmer for the crops damaged?

By addressing the issue from this perspective, the farmer is paid for lost revenue, the geese are fed and the native communities in Alaska will have plenty of geese to hunt during the summer to provide needed sustenance. As some would say, this would be a win-win situation all the way around.

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