Red Listing African Goliath Beetles

[alandmor]

A new paper on the conservation status of several species of African Goliath beetles: Red Listing African Goliath Beetles: Assessing Threats and Conservation Needs, February 2025, African Journal of Ecology 63(1):e70018.

Congratulations to all the authors on this important work. Their paper should be available to download free of charge at the following link.

https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... tion_Needs

[Chuck]

Thanks! I downloaded and skimmed it. Same old story- deforestation and urban sprawl. Fortunately for the species, the Japanese will keep them going. Shame we can't keep most of the species surviving in USA as well.

[wollastoni]

I read the article.
Very interesting, good work ... but wrong conclusion.

The conclusion should be to enforce environmental laws in these African countries and/or enlarge National Parks there. "Red listing" these species, putting them under CITES will have no effect at all except increasing their market value and preventing Japanese & Taiwanese from breeding them. Totally counter-productive.

It is not by "red listing" all tropical insect species that you protect them. It is by protecting their environment.

The Goliathus trade, well organized, could even help buy some lands to protect them in Africa.

[Chuck]

I read the article.
Very interesting, good work ... but wrong conclusion.

The conclusion should be to enforce environmental laws in these African countries and/or enlarge National Parks there. "Red listing" these species, putting them under CITES will have no effect at all except increasing their market value and preventing Japanese & Taiwanese from breeding them. Totally counter-productive.

It is not by "red listing" all tropical insect species that you protect them. It is by protecting their environment.

The Goliathus trade, well organized, could even help buy some lands to protect them in Africa.

As we have observed, these bureaucratic organizations do everything EXCEPT what needs to be done to protect species.


Fortunately in upstate NY, private organizations have leveraged land and cash donations to preserve hundreds of thousands of acres of special ecosystems. Power of the people works where governments and feel-good paper pushers fail.