Another Voice

Kill a goat if you want to save the planet

Saturday, 22nd January 2005

And there is worse. Goats break down effective systems of human land-ownership, or inhibit their growth. Goats being blind to land-tenure, their owners must be so too; all land becomes common land. Goat-tenure replaces land-tenure and you are judged by your herd, not your acreage. Any peasant minded to sow, tend and harvest a crop faces an uphill struggle to fence his patch against marauding goats. In the Danakil desert last week I saw poor and hungry Afar tribespeople living near what should have been oases — there was water beneath the surface, and wells — but which were uncultivated and bare even of palms.

Which brings me to an awkward point. There were too many Afar people in the Danakil depression, which is desert surrounded by semi-desert. It seemed vast and empty, but as soon as you stopped curious Afars would materialise, and their goats would not be far behind. These super-efficient machines were supporting a human population too high for this environment to bear sustainably. Here and on higher ground what trees there were looked 30 years old or more; there were few saplings.

Goats need eliminating, land needs enclosing, and there must be fewer people. Bold, yes, but the green lobby keeps telling us we must not be timid if the planet is to be saved. They have Texan gas-guzzlers in their sights. I have goats.

Matthew Parris is a political columnist of the Times.