Editor’s note: A pandemic in our backyards - The squirrel walked a bit wobbly, it wasn’t as agile and funny as these small creatures often move. It had its eyes rather closed which gave it a tired look. I was concerned and called a squirrel rescue station, luckily there was one closer to me. The poor squirrel got worse meanwhile and couldn’t jump anymore. Lastly, it just sat in the corner of the roof with its head down.

by Riza Salman on Mongabay 11 June 2024

• During the COVID-19 pandemic, a young documentary filmmaker began quietly joining a growing number of Facebook community groups run by traders of rare Indonesian birds.
• Over the following two years, a reporting team from several news organizations uncovered a wide network of actors offering species for sale for as little as 250,000 rupiah ($15). These individuals included a serving naval officer.
• One shop owner selling birds in Morowali, the epicenter of Indonesia’s nickel mining and smelting boom, said they began trading in birds in 2018, after ships began docking in the local port bringing oil and cement.

KENDARI, Indonesia — In 2021, as the world grappled with the COVID-19 pandemic, Irwan watched online as a flurry of new social media groups dedicated to parrots sprang up across Indonesia.

Editor’s note: Most Indigenous economics or land-based communities appreciate nature in its complex lifegiving and intelligent values it provides - for free - to all forms of creatures on earth. Yet we live in a century where shareholders and voracious businessmen and women on Wall Street want to put not only a monetary value but tradable assets on nature.

In this podcast episode by Mongabay Newscast, you’ll learn why this fails to recognize the intrinsic value of biodiversity and how the principles of Indigenous economics would lead to balance and harmony towards biological and physical reality.