Dr. Terry Moore

The Cat Survival Trust

Today's Date: 23rd August 2006

1. What interaction with an animal and/or nature in your life has had the biggest impact on you?

Many- main event was my first visit to rainforest

2. Did you have a favorite place in the great outdoors during your childhood?

Woodlands near our family home.

Now? Any natural habitat particularly rainforest.

3. As a former zookeeper, I would love to know what your favorite animal is, and why?

All cats. As an animal at the terminal end of the food chain, if they survive, so do we! www.catsurvivaltrust.org

4. What do you think is the greatest environmental challenge facing us now,

The World Bank and the IMF have indiscriminately loaned money to countries to carry out “developments” many of which have been a total waste of money and have failed to provide economic gain at the cost of environmental destruction. In addition corrupt governments and contractors have transferred too much of the money to Swiss and other off shore bank accounts. This has forced countries to extract timber and mineral resources from wild habitats in an attempt to repay the debts. The loss of forests, particularly in the tropics and natural habitats worldwide are the main causes of climate change. Forest clearance in the tropics is planetary suicide. In areas of forest clearance, the intense heat of the sun on cleared land during the day forces the tropical rain clouds higher into the atmosphere and the trade winds then transport them north and south of the tropics to provide tropical rainstorms on areas not designed to deal with them The additional heat retained in the tropics in cleared land and the differential in temperature between day and night create wind eddies which seed the hurricanes and transfer the heat north and south away from the tropics. Then to make matters worse as more and more forest is cut down, the air in the trade winds, which bring pollutant gases back to the rainforests in the tropics down the east coasts of north Africa and North America where they used to be “cleaned” from the air, progressively re-circulate these pollutant gases instead of extracting them. Add to this the increases in human population and the increased consumption of materials and is it any wonder the planet is no longer able to regulate itself. Everything else will follow- desertification, drought, flood, fire, starvation, death of all living fauna and flora in the sea and on land.

and what do you think will be the greatest challenge in the future?

Reversing the damage and destruction.

5. If you could give everyone one piece of advice regarding the environment and our natural resources, what would it be?

There is no single piece of advice unless you simply say “Live in a sustainable way”. Personally, I would ask people restrict human population growth and aim to reduce population in the future. I would also ask people to save the world’s forests. To do this we have to save the forest we have left, allow damaged areas to regenerate and replant as much as we possibly can. I would get people to build underground. (In hot countries your air conditioning bills would be minimal in cold countries your heating bills would also be minimal). Many more are being built each year but the increase rate is too slow. Etc etc, All ideas and queries to DrTM@aol.com.