By JiaH-18 (edited), 19 August 2008

No Time to Lose

According to www.rain-tree.com, a website providing information on rainforests conservation, experts estimate that more than 100 species of plants and animals go extinct every single day!

With much of the environmental focus on global warming, it is seldom that we hear about the plight of species which face the threat of extinction.

The BBC reported last week that more than 70 percent of primates in Asia are listed as endangered, or at risk of extinction. Cambodia and Vietnam have 90 and 86 percent of their primates, respectively facing extinction, due largely to huge waves of deforestation for agriculture and power generation. In Malaysia, for example, thousands of acres of the world’s oldest rainforests in Borneo are threatened by plans to construct hydroelectric dams. In neighboring Indonesia, rainforests are cleared and burned to make way for farms and settlement.

The wildlife trade is also abundant in continents like Asia, Africa and Latin America, where the fur, teeth, and bones of animals are valued for their apparent exotic and medicinal properties.

The disappearance of plant and animals species is a disturbing phenomenon that will slowly diminish biodiversity. Biodiversity is the variety of plant and animal species, and how all the species interact and depend on one another. Without a certain species of plant or animal, other species will also slowly go extinct. This is because when a species goes extinct, it means that a food source, a symbiotic ally, or a reproductive mechanism of another species is lost. When species go extinct, human beings are also impacted. Many plants are valued for their chemicals, which are used to find cures for certain diseases or synthesis new products. Even animals, like the cone snail, have made and are continuing to make significant contributions to the medical and pharmaceutical world.

If any species go extinct, we lose a potential source of information for scientific and even design breakthrough. If one species which are a food source or a pollinator for other species go extinct, those others that depend on them for survival are likewise in danger of extinction. This shows how important it is to protect plant and animal species from extinction in nature's elaborate circle of life.

Primates are key players in our the human world. They provide insight to the way we behave, interact and form societies. Much of neuroscience, psychology, and sociology owe their findings to the observations and experiments done with primates. It is difficult to forget the experiences of Jane Goodall with chimpanzees in Africa, whose writings and findings have provided a rare glimpse into the way we human beings organize ourselves in societies. Some scientists also believe that primates represent the missing links in our evolutionary history. The study of primates gives biologists an idea of how we evolved through the ages and developed our abilities to think, speak and solve complex problems.

All these would be lost if primates go extinct.

In the end, what right do we have to kill, or to destroy our precious remaining lif-giving rain forests? It's worse when we kill unnecessarily, for the sake of vanity ... To display -- for example -- a skull as decoration, a gall bladder as exotic condiment which might hold the as yet unrevealed cure for an incurable illness ... To deplete the population and genetic pool of some exotic animal-in-the-wild as a caged pet.

This planet on which we live is -- as far as we know -- the only one in the universe with such a diversity of species, plants and animals. As human beings, we have the advantage of foresight, thought and morals and perhaps we have been gifted with these superior skills to act as custodians, to safe guard nature's magnificent heritage ... But somewhere in our rush to prove our remarkable resourcefulness and resilience, we humans lost this important vital connection to Nature and all living creatures big and small in this intricate symbiotic circle of life ... Turning away to embrace the precision and predictability of lifeless machines, yet machines don't have the power of creation or regeneration -- only life does, and that power is worth protecting for the surprises they have yet to reveal.

Interview with CORINNE KASSAY, JANE GOODALL INSTITUTE HONG KONG: DEFINITELY NOT JUST MONKEY BUSINESS!.