Save Wild life, save environment ... how much?

1411... this number is as popular with Indian public as 26/11 or 9/11. It rings a bell that something is dying and the doomsday is fast approaching. The "World Savers" have created an aura on the activity of saving animals as though they are demi-Gods warding away evil forces. As a kid, I grew up with a strong inclination towards wildlife protection, diversity preservation. In fact even this day I contribute to Greenpeace. I suggest they should be certain social responsibility towards environment. Else even the most responsible guys go waver. The best example is that of the Tatas messing up in Olive Ridler turtle case.

But all the hoopla on saving endangered species is conveying a wrong message. It shows as though Man is responsible for the extinction of all the species till date and we are about do one more. The truth is in the process of evolution there will be many species which die a certain death. Any kind of mitigating methods might not help. Evolution dictates that those creatures which are in the equal harmony with the current eco-system have to live and the others should perish. This is one reason why we cannot have dinosaurs living in this age and why man cannot live in the pre-jurassic era.

How far is man responsible? Man has made several changes to the Mother nature. But we are not the only creatures who made such big changes to natural surroundings many other creatures do. Beavers dig up new trenches and create new water paths, knocking down the flora and fauna in the way. Dinosaurs ate so much greenery on planet earth that even at that time there would have been a big deforestation campaigns every day. So it is not that, Man alone has made all the radical changes and is destroying earth.

Though man is responsible for making many alterations on the nature, it is not he has done a grave mistake. As a part of evolution, we have evolved to such a stage when our deeds are influencing other creatures. This is for the first time that man has done this, but this is not the first that nature has experienced something like this. There were meteors which influenced nature abruptly and suddenly. There were catastrophes which altered the type of species that thrived and lived later on. So this is nothing new to nature. It has its own mechanism to rebound and get back to normalcy. Consider this: Man's deeds can cause extinction of certain species like Tiger or Elephant, but can his deeds wipe out cockroaches, rats, lizards from the planet? No they cannot as they too have evolved alongwith Man to live in this modern ecosystem. If certain species cannot cope up with the changes, then the species are better to left to nature to decide. Probably they might evolve and adapt to human ecosystem, just like dogs have evolved and tempered from Wolves. (Imagine generations from now there will be domesticated tigers which people can nurture at their homes.)

Then what should be Man's responsibility. As a denizen it is the responsibility to strive to protect a species to certain extent. This should be done in the limits of his capacity and by not compromising on his development (Are the advanced countries listening?). He should strive his maximum extent to protect tigers. After all, even I want my future generations to see what a "Panthera Tigris" looks like. But that does not mean that Indian government should stack all the money in the forest department office leaving the defense and social sectors. We are not here for the purpose of charity or chastity but we have a generation to evolve and pretty assured that Mother Nature will catch along soon.