I started this off as one post, but Lemmy didn’t like it so I’m breaking it into two:

PART 2

Next Article

Let’s start off by observing how this writer subtly plugs their new book…

One of the first articles this writer uses is for this statement:

A review of evidence from over 100 studies found that when livestock are removed from the land, the abundance and diversity of almost all groups of wild animals increases

Looking at the article they reference the conclusion states: (I had to do a lot of manual typing and editing as the source I found did not easily allow copy paste, so please forgive any typos)

Livestock exclusion can benefit the abundance and diversity of multiple trophic levels. However, abandoning grazing in certain environments may not result in an increase to biodiversity and in some instances can cause further loss. For instance, we observed grazing having a positive effect on plant diversity and four studies within our meta-analysis where animal diversity increased with livestock grazing, contradicting the general trend. In all four studies, livestock grazing maintained grassland structure by suppressing woody encroachment, which supports specific animal species. Although the conversion of grasslands to shrublands has been attributed to overgrazing, continued grazing in these systems might be required to minimize shrub cover. In other ecosystems, such as forests, livestock production is some-times described as causing habitat loss because the generated rangelands do not provide the same ecosystem services or functions as the previous native habitat. If there are persistent effects of grazing, restoration to previous conditions can be impractical and instead these rangelands represent novel ecosystems with a different set of species composition and functions… When examined at the species-level the effects of grazing can be significantly magnified relative to community measures. For instance, at risk species may be especially sensitive to livestock relative to other species if grazing reduces the abundance of plant species that they are dependent. The impacts of livestock grazing on conservation are thus dependent on target organism (plants, primary consumers, predators) and goals set by land managers (improving diversity or productivity). The production of livestock has increased significantly in spatial extent since the 1960s and is projected to continue to expand in developing countries, potentially threatening indigenous animal diversity on a global scale. Future increases in climate variability is also expected to threaten food security and increase conversion of land into rangelands. To meet this demand, livestock grazers will continue to be placed on land shared by indigenous animal species, thereby potentially threatening the global biodiversity of herbivores and pollinators. These impacts are expected to be most pronounced in mild climates, such as temperate ecosystems, and are likely to persist after grazers are removed. Identifying the aspects of grazing that most impact animal biodiversity could be used to further develop more effective management practices. For example, some forms of rotational grazing are effective in environments with low abiotic stress and when precipitation less variable. Techniques for mitigation will not erase all the effects of livestock grazing and these negative cascading effects may be an inevitable consequence that society will need to balance with the socioeconomic benefits.

This article while supporting the argument that livestock grazing is not as good as whatever native environment was there before the grazing, for the most part, it’s hardly the glaring result that the writer claims it is and the writers of the academic article even point out that it’s not universally the case. This portion of the article also discusses how a certain amount of grazing can cause an ecosystem to shift from it’s historic setting and create a novel new setting, implying that if grazing ceased the preexisting ecosystem wouldn’t return and instead you would simply destroy what is currently working.

I’m not going to get into the rest of this article as I started to cringe at the discussion of cyanide land mines.

Conclusion: When it comes to environmental journalism too often the people fail to use the articles they reference accurately and instead use the appeal to authority logical fallacy to make their biased, opinion based, points appear more valid. Often times a nugget of their argument is accurate, but as with much of journalism the goal is views, ratings, and book sales rather than a fair and accurate representation of science.