Environment: Saying Goodbye To Us

The latest issue of TIME magazine has an article on the probable extinction of the Yangtze River dolphin, one of the four freshwater river dolphin species in the world. This highly intelligent, human sized mammal was long considered auspicious by Chinese fishermen. Now it is gone, forever. It has the dubious distinction of being the first marine mammal to be driven to extinction solely because of humankind’s destruction of the environment.

Why is this so important? Why is the death of a seemingly unimportant species of river dolphin so important to us? The Yangtze River dolphin was a barometer of the health of China’s Yangtze River, a river that sustains four hundred million people or six percent of the world’s population. The extinction of the Yangtze River dolphin bodes ill for the survival of the river itself as well as the millions of people who live on its banks.

China’s phenomenal economic growth over the past twenty years has gone hand in hand with unparalleled destruction of that country’s environment and natural resources. The Yangtze River is now a river highway that resembles rush hour traffic – parts of the river have a boat density of sixty boats per kilometre. The Yangtze River is also highly polluted because of the discharge of untreated sewage and industrial effluents into the river. Industrial pollution combined with over-fishing has led to huge declines in the numbers and species of fish in the Yangtze – remember that four hundred million people depend on the Yangtze River for drinking water as well as food.

Old established methods of fishing have been replaced by those using sticks of dynamite. This “dynamite” fishing was one of the causes of the demise of the river dolphin. River dolphins are blind and rely on sonar to navigate the waterways. Dynamite fishing interferes with the dolphin’s ability to navigate the river. The confused and blind dolphins tend to panic, and get entangled in the nets of fishermen.

China is not the only villain as far as irreversible environmental degradation is concerned. India is also a culprit. The Ganges River dolphin is also at risk – it is listed as an endangered species and only four thousand are still left in the wild. The risks and dangers it faces are very similar to those faced by its Yangtze cousin – over-fishing, too much human activity, shrinkage of its habitat and pollution. The Ganges River, like the Yangtze, is dying a slow death, and water levels have reduced dramatically in the past few decades. The consequences of the death of the Ganges for India’s vast population are unthinkable – and very real.

The Indian national animal, the great and majestic Royal Bengal Tiger, is on the verge of extinction, with its natural habitat fragmenting and shrinking every year. Tiger bones are also a staple in traditional Chinese medicine, and the illegal market for tiger parts is a huge and lucrative one. Already, the Sariska Tiger Reserve in the Indian state of Rajasthan has fallen silent. The tigers there have been poached and hunted into extinction.

The Siberian Tiger, the most graceful and largest cat of them all, is also on the verge of extinction in Russia. Only three hundred Siberian tigers remain in the wild in a protected biosphere near Vladivostok. The biosphere is under threat, there are talks to construct a road though it to help revive the flagging Russian logging industry. This move would be an environmental disaster, to say the least.

It is not much different in the rest of the world, either. In the African country of the Congo, racked by poverty and civil war, the great African silverback gorilla is being indiscriminately killed and driven into extinction. Eating African bushmeat has become “chic” in the gourmet cafes of New York, London, Hanoi and Beijing. A total of thirteen thousand pounds of bushmeat (from animals illegally hunted and slaughtered) arrive in the US and Europe every year.

The American grizzly bear is hanging on by the skin of its teeth in Alaska and elsewhere. The world’s insatiable demand for petroleum products is putting increasing pressure to open up the Arctic Refuge in Alaska for oil drilling – this would be a death knell for the American grizzly. The world’s wild places are falling silent, in many cases forever.

And we have not even touched upon the effects of global warming yet. That is a whole different disaster waiting to happen.

Humans are the only species that play God with Mother Nature. We believe that humankind as a species is a measure of all things. This is what the ancient Greeks called “titanism” – equating man with God. Remember the old Greek legend of Icarus, the man who wanted to become like a god and fly? Icarus did fly, but he flew too close to the sun. His wings melted and he fell to the ground and died.

In our attempt to become gods, we are flying too close to the sun. Unless we stop now, we will soon be saying goodbye to another species – us.