"Noah took everything that walked & flew on earth into the ark, but he forgot the plants.
Of the 250,000 or so species known to man thousands have vanished in the recent years. Point taken in that the unique forests of Brazil's atlantic coast now occupy only about 2% or less of their former range.
We need to be concerned with saving the ecosystems, every habitant will die if you take away its natrient producing plants & soil bacteria,& fungi. The small scale farmer & the herdsmen, most being poor, have to cut down the trees on their lands to grow crops, not always working out for them. This causes the areas to suffer from droughts caused by deforestatin, overgrazing by livestock and many many missuses of the lands. Also the industrialized nations misuse & deplete the third worlds raw materials. They polute the big cities & cause many ecosystems to be ruined or damaged. It will take a readjustment of mans values & priorities to make a difference. I know it will be the young adults of the new century who will make those changes! When all the older men & women with their postpartum war ideals of how to treat our world, "to make money" for the last 70 years, retire and the kids of the new century take their jobs in all those high positions,we will see a change.
We are now in another extinction period but very different from the past ones. We are taking extinction to a new high! The list of vanished animals is a long & sad one. The Stellers sea cow, hunted for its meat that tasted like veal. Disappeared in 1768, only 27 years after its discovery. The DODO ,50 lb flightless bird. The last one hunted and killed by a Dutch settler in 1680. The Labrador Duck, the Great Auk, the Quagga, the Bluebuck are just a small few mentioned by me to be extinct in the 19th century. At least a 150 or more vertebrate species has vanished since the 1600. And many many other animals are gone or will be soon. This shows mans stupidity and symbolizes how we see extinction.
In conservation both idealism and realism must be served. We can rebuild the Statue of Liberty , we can rebuild the Taj Mahal and every other man made thing. Yes it would be very sad if we lost these great peices of work that symbolize mankind, but how great would it be if we lost the Tiger of India, the Jaguar of Guatemala, the Koala of Australia, the Eagle of the United States, the Giant Panda of China? The rare Orchids ,the rare Plants, that prove very valuable to medicine, industry, agriculture, that one day will save your grandchildrens - grandchildren.
We do not have 2 or 5 earths to squander, waste, destroy, kill, amputate, We have 1
earth to treasure, make a difference& make it now!
I will end this with a quote I read when I was in Australia," one of the few countries left on earth with an untouched Rain Forest. Full of undiscovered species yet to be identified and for the great efforts of the government & the people to protect their unique animals & ecosystems"
The quote was from an Aboriginal Leader, Big Bill Neidji,
" Our story is in the land... It is written in those sacred places. My children will look after those places. That's the law."
