![By Liam Quinn from Canada [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://markavery.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Black-browed_Albatross_flying_over_the_South_Atlantic_5544284838.jpg)
The Falkland Islands government website has a few pretty photographs of penguins in its environment section but rather little information about them. That seems typically British at any rate.
Falklands Conservation (the island partner of BirdLife International) has rather more information on the penguins: 210,000 pairs of rockhoppers, 140,000 pairs of Magellanics, 120,000 pairs of gentoos (around a third of the world population) and a few macaronis and king penguins too. It makes you wonder how the penguins would vote doesn’t it – they are a rather larger constituency than the people?
Oh yes – I almost forgot – there are about 400,000 pairs of black-browed albatrosses too which comprise c70% of the world population.
And the waters over which the albatrosses soar on stiff wings, and in which the penguins swim, are not only rich in current wildlife. Under their surface there are the fossilised bodies of long-dead plankton – which we call oil – apparently about $160,000,000,000 worth. And you do have to wonder, don’t you, whether the UK is more interested in the oil riches around the islands than the wildlife riches, or indeed than the fate of the people. Or at least I wonder that.
I’ve not been able to find out much about Argentina’s environmental record although their Happy Planet Index puts them 17th on the list and the UK about 120th. Hmmm. Maybe we should ask the penguins – after all, living c300 miles off the coast of Argentina, and just 7800 miles from London, they are bound to speak English rather than Spanish, I’m sure.
Or perhaps we ought to ask our government to make some real commitments to protect the precious wildlife of all the UK Overseas Territories – both terrestrial and marine.
![By Liam Quinn from Canada (Gentoo Penguin chicks Uploaded by russavia) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://markavery.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Gentoo_Penguin_chicks_5557755056.jpg)
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I am not sure that HPI ranking is necessarily a very good measure of the environmental responsibility of different countries. Brazil, for example, ranks pretty highly at 22 but has presided over the destruction of vast areas of tropical rain forest. Also the list your link points to puts UK at number 41 for 2012 which is not quite as bad as 120.
Having said that, I entirely agree with your final statement that the UK should do much more to protect the wildlife in the UK Overseas Territories (and to the wildlife within the UK itself come to that).
Jonathan – thanks. The list has clearly been updated since last I looked at it – thanks for pointing that out.
“destruction of vast areas of tropical rain forest”
And the Cerrado. For the main purpose of Roundup sales – the production of Roundup Ready soy and corn is seen by some as a useful by-product.
It would be interesting to know whose pension schemes have shares in Monsanto
It did make me chuckle when an oil spokesman was interviewed about the referendum on the island (why an oil man?) and he remarked that it would make things easier dealing with the British government then the Argentine government…think he was nervous of the “n” word, nationalisation. I shudder when I think of oil drilling in this area, when similar drilling has been postponed or cancelled because equipment keeps failing in similar enivromental conditions.
Interestingly, the British Government seemed to take more interest in the conservation of the Chagos Archipelago, but in this instance weren’t interested in giving the Chagos Islanders a vote on the matter. Nothing to do with US interests in the area of course.