brown, basted and ready to be carved...

Today I submitted my thesis. I should be feeling elated, with a sense of achievement. Instead I just feel exhausted and worried. All of the literature that I read is still spinning circles in my head and I'm left wondering how many animals are in the same situation as the tuna, how many others have lost the fight like the Yangtze River Dolphin declared extinct in 2006. I keep fast-forwarding three years and speculating whether the same announcement awaits the Bluefin Tuna or the Mountain Gorilla or the Amur Leopard or the Orangutan or countless other species that live their lives on a balance.

Biodiversity loss is one of the most alarming consequence of human activities on the planet. The influence of global warming is only accelerating this. The Polar Bear which was added IUCN Red List was the first animal to be included due to direct man-made activity. The species that we aware of and have catalogued only contains a small portion of the wealth on this Earth, there are many many types of plants, animals, birds, trees, insects out there waiting to be discovered - like the renowned naturalist E.O. Wilson said "we are destroying the library even before it has been catalogued". But what we don't know won't hurt us, right? wrong!

Through the loss of species both known and unknown we are not only losing an evolutionary link, we are also losing a potential use of and for that organism. Every organism supports the fabric of life in some unique way, therefore when we lose an animal or plant, we also lose a service. It can be medicinal purposes; the service of acting as a decomposer, a pollinator, a scavenger, a top-predator etc.

Preservation of biodiversity is one of the most important aspects of environmentalism. Respecting the boundaries of the natural world is no longer just an ideology, it is an issue of morality. Our needs-based consumption patterns must be curbed and we must remember that "we do not inherit the Earth from our parents, we borrow it from our children". It does not speak well of us as a 'civilized' generation to stand idly by and condone the destruction of species for short-term economic gain. Apathy in this case may as well be akin to participation. This epoch of death will be judged harshly unless we gather forces now to persevere and preserve.

The human race is at the crux of our History, a point that is testing our mettle and our maturity. If there was ever a more louder call for action, it is now. The choice between the Kingdom of Heaven and total annihilation is out there for our taking.

they were here before us

A couple of weeks ago I watched the movie 'Sharkwater' and was truly horrified by the amount of shark finning that still continues. Sharks have been on the Earth for over 400 million years. They are an evolutionary masterpiece and perfectly adapted for their role as the top-most predator in the ocean food chains of the world.

As a key-stone predator, sharks have shaped the evolution of many creatures as predation is one of the primary forms of natural selection. There is also very little change between modern sharks and sharks from a million years ago which means that they are so well adapted to their environment that there is very little natural selection pressure on them... until we came along. Not only are we disturbing shark population by pollution, long-line fishing etc but sharks are also hunted for their fins which is a multi-billion dollar industry. Shark-fin hunting is a brutal practice where the animal is thrown back into the sea and left to die with all its fins cut off.

Shark specialists estimate that 100 million sharks are killed for their fins, annually resulting in the devastating loss of shark populations around the world. Experts estimate that within a decade, most species of sharks will be lost because of longlining, finning and unsustainable fishery. The massive quantity of sharks harvested and lack of selection deplete shark populations faster than their reproductive abilities can replenish population threatens the stability of marine ecosystems.

Each country with a coastline is responsible for laws and regulations pertaining to fishing in their waters. According to the IUCN Shark Specialist group, the easiest way to implement a ban is to require that shark carcasses be landed with fins attached. The possession of fins alone on vessels would thus be illegal. Shark finning violates the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries. The United Nations Convention on the Trade of Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna (CITES) lists the whale shark, basking shark, and great white shark as species that could become threatened if trade is not controlled. To date, 169 countries have agreed to be legally bound by CITES.

The following statistics were found in an article written by Maneka Gandhi for PFA. Of the 368 species of sharks in the world, we have 50 in Indian waters. The largest is the 50 feet long whale shark and the smallest is the 8-inch long pygmy ribbontail catshark. We have a 7000 km long coastline. According to the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, the Fishery Survey of India annually , around 70,000 tonnes of shark fins are sourced from India. For 1 tonne of shark fins about 650 sharks are killed. Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh are responsible for 85% of the shark killings in India. Chennai and Mumbai are the major shark fin trading centres. An average small fisherman about Rs 25/day. The company sells them for Rs 250. The foreign restaurant retails the single bowl of soup for Rs 6,000. Ironically, shark fin has no nutrition and is tasteless - the flavour of the soup usually comes from chicken broth.

These figures are alarming. As the top ocean predator, sharks contribute in keeping our fish stocks and oceans healthy. Oceans without these powerful, graceful and shy creatures are unimaginable. A situation we are likely to face in an estimated 10 years if action is not taken now. They were here much before us, it is a shame that all we see now is a bowl of soup.

are we going the same way as the dinosaurs?

As long ago as 1993, Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson estimated that Earth is currently losing around 30,000 species per year — which breaks down to the even more daunting statistic of 3 species per hour. This has led many biologists to believe that the current biodiversity crisis is leading into 'the Sixth Extinction' which is more imminent than previously thought.

The fifth major extinction occurred at the end of the Cretaceous period which wiped-out the terrestrial dinosaurs and marine species as seen from fossil records of this period. It is believed that this event was caused by collisions between the Earth and extraterrestrial bodies. There is also the theory of a volcanic event that produced the Deccan traps of India as part of the chain of physical events that disrupted ecosystems so severely that many species succumbed to extinction.

The sixth extinction however, is different from anything that has previously occurred because for most part it is human-induced. There is little doubt that humans are the direct cause of ecosystem stress and species destruction in the modern world through their activities.

The first phase of the sixth extinction began shortly after Homo sapiens evolved and migrated out of in Africa. Humans reached the middle east 90,000 years ago. They were in Europe starting around 40,000 years ago. Neanderthals, who had long lived in Europe, survived our arrival for less than 10,000 years, and then abruptly disappeared. So modern humans have a long history of destroying native species wherever they migrate and this can be traced to even pre-historic times with the help of fossil records.

The second phase of the sixth extinction began around 10,000 years with the invention of agriculture. Agriculture represents the single most profound ecological change in the entire 3.5 billion-year history of life. Once agriculture became main-stream, humans could manipulate other species for their use. This also meant a departure from the 'hunter-gatherer' stage of history which means the species could overpopulate. Around this time it is believed that there were about 1 billion people populating the Earth. Currently, there are 6 billion people, by 2020, there could be 8 billion people. There is an upper limit to the carrying capacity of humans on earth, that number is usually estimated at between 13-15 billion.

The ecosystems of today's world has been plunged into chaos. There isn't a single face of the planet untouched by the human hand. Conservation measures, sustainable development, and ultimately, stabilization of human population numbers and consumption patterns seem to offer some hope that the Sixth Extinction will not be as drastic as some of the previous extinction events.

Life is incredibly resilient and it has always recovered but only when environmental stress has dissipated or reduced. In the case of the Sixth Extinction, the cause is ourselves. So this we have a choice: to continue on the path to our own extinction or modify our behaviour. Behaviour modification is incredibly challenging but in order for Life to rebound, it is now supremely essential.