Conservation currently for most people today seems to put ‘humans’ in a position of control and trying to change things that they have messed up…whereas in the real sense it should be about creating and understanding and awareness of how we are a part of it all and perish like any other species… The species that truly needs conservation are humans themselves, nature has been changing and works on a timescale much longer than our lives and will remove us as a species sooner than later…we have to mend our own ways if we truly want to survive.
So it’s not wildlife conservation that needs attention, it’s actually human conservation that needs attention which needs to work at a global level but in spite of all our ‘intelligence’ we currently lack the capability and social structure to work together as a species or even as collective populations.
The only way all this can get ‘reset’ is when there’s an epidemic or situation when large populations start dying and then humanity will revert to the ‘fear of survival’, the most primal of instincts which seems to have been forgotten because of the illusion of ‘control’ that we seem to have currently and are completely oblivious to.
So now the question is do we really ‘want’ to survive, procreate and populate the earth in conjunction with its natural environment?
– Deepanker Mukherjee
It’s time we perceive man as part of the web of life, rather looking it as man-animal conflict and countering the same we need to promote man-animal coexistence and keep guard of human indigenousness.
– Vineeth Malabaricus
Have you ever seen anyone anywhere trying to raise funds to conserve anything that’s not cute or fierce or beautiful? Why is the panda or the tiger the face of conservation? When frogs and fungi are actually keystone species and probably the most highly endangered across the world. Today’s conservation is for “beautiful and useful species only.”
Humans only want to save what they think is cute or likeable enough to save. Ecology experts say such thinking means we’re in danger of re-shaping nature to beautify it according to human notions of what’s pretty, saving the mammals but letting the reptiles and amphibians disappear. As for plants, they’re barely even on the list of candidates for protection. “Charismatic megafauna” are the big, cool animals that bring in tourists, photographers and conservation dollars.
Not that the conservationists don’t use the funds in the best way possible. Usually, the species that are used as the face of fundraisers are a part of an ecosystem that’s diverse and fragile and need to be saved. Securing protection for a large habitat for that big predator, be it a whale or tuna or a wolf or a tiger, results in the preservation of many small species; but not all of them. When you cater to the needs of only one species, you may be destroying the habitat for many others.
It’s just that this fact speaks so clearly of human nature, of the fact that we only ever do anything for species that we deem worthy of saving.
We are a social species caught up in our own cities and possessions and material lifestyle; alienating ourselves from the bigger picture. Maybe we should just stop and think and work towards being what the earth needs us to be. Take a moment and really appreciate all things, both pretty and the not so pretty, that allow us to enjoy our life on this tiny blue marble in space.
– Saee Gundawar
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