Man Vs Wild ; Pardon us 'Nature'

Tomorrow is World Environment Day. So, I guess it will be usual for a person to think of what humankind has done for, and done to, nature…

Thinking about it, will make one realize, that man has done much more harm to nature, than good for it. How many lives have we taken? How many homes have we destroyed?

I remember reading that if you put the events in which different creatures first appeared on earth, humans were very late. So, compared to other creatures, we spent very less time on earth. But, we have given it most losses… Our generation never got to see the marvellous sight of a Tasmanian tiger looking out on to lowlands standing on its tail, or a dodo bird  swallowing stones and our future generations might not even see the adorable sight of a panda if the situation goes on like this…

Nature gave us a home, shelter, clothes, food, knowledge and medicines… But what have we given it? We only started thinking about our mother nature, when we were also affected by the problems it faced; these problems, made by humankind. We started thinking about conserving it, so that we do not starve, so that we get enough luxuries, so that we do not run out of supplies. There is no sincere concern as there is always the word we there. That is our problem and no matter how much of a wildlife conversationalist you are, you contribute to Earth’s loss without knowing it…

A tigress was ‘said to’ have been responsible for 13 deaths in Maharashtra and so was shot dead legally. Note that in the previous statement I said, ‘said to’   not known. The tigress' name is Avni or officially; T1. She was alleged to be a man eater but there are CCTV visuals of the hungry tiger walking past a man without even glaring at him: a man eater would have killed him…

I read two heart-breaking incidents today alone: one, where in Kaziranga National Park (KNP), a rhino was killed by a group of seven poachers. 3 of them were caught by the police while the rest got away with the horn. These poachers had powerful weapons and were planning to take over the borders of KNP and were being searched by the police. Thus, the rhino having lost its life saved many others.

The other was that of an enraging event related to an elephant, which occurred in Silent Valley National Park. A female elephant was pregnant, tired and hungry… It wandered into the nearby village looking for food as it could not find food in the jungle. It was fed a pineapple filled with crackers and the elephant, not aware of the danger inside, ate it. The fruit exploded in her mouth… Even when in insufferable pain, she caused no chaos and endured it without harming a soul. Trying to relieve the pain, she stood in the middle of a pond, stood there and there itself for days. She died standing in the water, her unborn baby along with her…

See what we have done to nature? We polluted it, not only with plastic but also with the effects of human greed, ego, selfishness and a feeling of superiority in humans…

As a mother, Earth never beat us… Just scolded us or grounded us for a few days…

Finally, after enduring all this, she’s had enough. She proved of her strength and ability to keep our boastful and big mouths shut, our egoistic minds compressed and our selfish bodies at home using one of her tiniest but deadliest weapons. Something we cannot see, but more powerful than our huge loaded weapons…

In light of this COVID-19 pandemic, on this environment day, let us ask our universal mother; Earth, to forgive us for all we have done and promise to compensate for all we did, and never to destroy nature again…