7/31/2019 Two Questions and My Answer to Both

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Answer to the Questions posed to me by a scientist.

Q.1 Nature and its creatures must make dollars for humans?

Q.2 How many Wild animals we should have in India?

Maybe, I am a little outdated for I dont subscribe to the utilitarian view of the world. I

believe in a world created by a power that human mind cannot comprehend. It is common

knowledge that the Earth is the only planet known till now to harbour life and life on earth

is sustained by a complex process of interdependence.

As scientists and foresters We were taught ecology. When I hear some scientists andforesters proposing that humans could very well assume the ecological roles that various

species play in nature, I am appalled. When somebody asserts that tigers are redundant as

humans can take over the role that a tiger (carnivore) performs in nature, he/she is either

oversimplifying or he is a degree holder without the knowledge of ecology and conservation

biology.

When somebody proposes that let us set our objectives how many animals 'we the

humans' can manage in India(or the world), it reeks of self-assumed supremacy of man'

which is as untrue as the assertion that the ocean is only a pool of sand. You can very well

manage a ranch but you can't manage a jungle same as you can very well make a test tube

baby but can't create even a single cell amoeba on you own. And who are we to decide how

many animals should be on this planet. Multicellular life on earth evolved around 580million years ago but Homo sapiens that evolved only around 2 lakh years ago have

usurped everything on this planet seemingly for their own benefit rampaging every nook

and corner of the earth as if this planet is under the sole ownership of humans. To me, this

short-term benefit race looks like a marathon for self-destruction. Humans were not

running (ruining) the planet before that.

When carnivores are wiped out what happens to their umpteen camp-followersmongoose,

civet, jackal, hyena, vulture, tree pie, crow, maggot, and microorganism. And what

happens to the herbivores perhaps hundreds of men equipped with rifles and machine

guns would be sent out into the woods to exterminate herbivores to restore the balance of

nature. Our knowledge of nature's web is abysmal, we have no idea how the whole web

operates some trees cannot regenerate if some insects are not around and those insectscannot reproduce if a certain type of plant is not around. And that certain type of plants

cannot grow if certain ecological conditions are not present I am alluding to the Brazil

nut story ; scientists have researched and learnt only a little about a handful of such

interrelationships in nature.

The proponent of "Man is GOD" theory in India forget that average Indian forest dweller

is still very tolerant to the losses he/she has been suffering from wild animals, why?

because killing is not in the nature of Indians. The culture and ethos of this country are

entirely at variance with what one would encounter in Africa and the West. The western

thinking is that all other living forms on earth have been created to serve humans, on the

other hand in India people worship trees and animals - in many parts of Indian jungle,

village folks still worship bagh dev and Vandevi and protect sacred groves. Could a fewmetamorphosed Indians change this with a lure of dollars; I doubt.

Suhas Kumar,21.8.2012