WHAT IS MAN WITHOUT THE
Elzanne McCulloch
BEASTS?
T
he moving words written by television scriptwriter Ted Perry for Home, a 1972 television film about the rainforests in the northwest of the United States of America, have sadly gone unheeded – despite the controversy surrounding the now famous quotes.
“… how can you buy or sell the sky? The land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?” “… for we do not understand when the buffalo are slaughtered, the wild horses tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with scent of many men, and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires. Where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the Eagle? Gone. The end of living and the beginning of survival.” These words – incorrectly attributed to Seattle, the North American Suquamish and Duwamish Chief, in a 1854 speech – are turning out to be disturbingly true. Are we facing the end of living and the beginning of survival? The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) says in its 2018 Living Planet Report that there has been a 60% decline in the populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians in just over 40 years. There are currently more than 112,400 species on the Red List of Threatened Species of the International
26
Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) which provides information on the global conservation status of animal, fungus and plant species. According to the latest report more than 30,000 species on the Red List are threatened with extinction. This includes 41% of amphibians, 34% of conifers, 33% of reef building corals, 25% of mammals and 14% of birds. Even more disconcerting are estimates that 40% of the world’s insect populations (estimated at 30 million) have declined in recent years with an estimated third facing possible extinction. The chair of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), Sir Robert Watson, warned in a report released last year, “The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.” The report, the most comprehensive assessment of its kind, found that around one million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction, many within decades, more than ever before in human history. Habitat destruction and fragmentation when natural areas are converted for agriculture to feed the growing world population is one of the biggest causes of the biodiversity crisis. Sadly, though, these large-scale agricultural projects are often
