It’s time to act or we could face untold consequences in our lives

Our ancestors made a big mistake. They gave us ideas on how to establish a civilization and colony by driving away the natives (animals). When humans started evolving, primitive humans made their homes by encroaching animals’ land and survived by eating them. Then, it wasn’t a problem, as there were no harmful chemicals and gases to pollute this beautiful earth, or the population was not 7.8 billion. But now, this is a huge problem. If someone says that a wolf, tiger, cat or a dog entered their home, they are wrong because it’s not animals who have entered their home. It’s us, who have taken away their homes by cutting forests, increasing farmlands, and our making homes and offices. “Billi Ghar me Nahi Aayi, Aap Billi Ke Ghar me Gaye Hai.”

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An alarming report says that animals, birds and fishes have decreased more than two-thirds in less than 50 years due to overconsumption. The Living Planet Index, which tracks more than 4,000 species of vertebrates, in a recently released report, said that the population of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fishes has decreased by 68 per cent since 1970.

Congrats humans, in the race to be on top in science, technology, space exploration, defence, a comfortable lifestyle, we have murdered many animals in the process. While we were trying to be on top of above-mentioned things, we forgot to come top on humanity, sympathy, compassion and love for our fellow earth mates- animals, fishes and birds.

If not for animals, we need to take this thing very seriously for our well-being or we will unbalance nature more and more. Large scale destructions of nature could result in untold consequences in our livelihoods and health. So far, human activities have severely degraded 75 per cent of all the land and 40 per cent of the oceans.

The Living Planet Index report, a collaborative effort of WWF (World Wildlife Fund) and Zoological Society of London, warned that the continuity in natural habitat loss is likely to increase the chances of future pandemics as we are expanding our presence closer to wild animals.

The WWF calculates that we are overusing the planet capacity by more than half. Until 1970, our ecological footprint was smaller than the Earth’s capacity to regenerate resources. In the last 5 years, the world has seen unprecedented economic growth supported by a large explosion in the consumption of natural resources.

Although pollution and invasive species are a factor in declining the number of wildlife creatures, the single largest reason is the land-use, generally by industry which converts forests or grasslands into farms. Our consumption has increased so much that we use one-third of all landmass and three-quarters of all freshwater for producing food. In the oceans, 75 per cent of the fish stocks are over-exploited.

What do we need to do now?

Experts believe that reducing food waste and favouring environment-friendly and healthier diets could help in decreasing the degradation of nature. It’s not just the moral duty of ours to co-exist with other living beings, but also think about the impact of this massive loss to our society, health and economy. The time to become sad after reading these things is gone, now is the time to worry and with radical changes in conservation, we have to bend the curve of degradation and save wildlife.

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