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Monday, November 12, 2018

The Banned Commercial

"The Streisand effect is a phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, usually facilitated by the Internet."

- Wikipedia


The video clip above is from a commercial that was set to air in Iceland - before it was banned for being too political or, more accurately, too depressing.  It highlights the need for the world to take a firm stand on sustainable palm oil, or risk losing orangutans, Sumatran rhinos, Sumatran tigers, tomistoma, and a host of other species to extinction.

As moving as it is, I doubt that I would have ever heard of it if it hadn't been banned by the government, so thanks Iceland.

It's easy for us to pretend that the extinction crisis is brought about by other people, and that simply by not being "those people" - be they rich trophy hunters or practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine - that we've done enough to help (or at least not hurt) animals.  The truth is we all have so much more to do.  Otherwise, we risk having a future where orangutans are found in zoos and zoos alone.

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