EnviroScience

WILDLIFE AND THE ENVIRONMENT: THE CORE POLITICS OF NATURAL SCIENCE

 

The beginning of this century seems to have brought all science of the environment, from many years gone by up to the present, under a ‘X 10’ magnifying glass. This is a time when a loud call for a collective political action to the global community has been made with much emphasis. One would not wonder to hear that the recently ended Copenhagen conference for world scientists on ‘the environment’ has conclusively been termed as ‘the final warning’ to the global community on environmental management. I too believe this one should really be the last warning, not necessarily implying that that scientists have given up raising alarms on the damage of the environment, but that there will never again be another convenient time for another call to be made before it will be too late, for now it is very late.

 

It is very interesting to see how world politicians are fighting hard for the recovery of a clean environment. I recently realized that a clean environment means ‘a clean breath’ to all. But how does politics and the environment relate? A good number of legislative acts are in place already, to control hazardous activities and chemicals disposal .

 

There are a lot of micro activities that people in seemingly ‘innocent’ communities undertake for their daily livelihood that contribute to the damage of the environment. Unnecessary disposal of persistent organic materials among other things are the major contributors to the evil looking climate changes. A very simple activity of cutting down a branch of a tree has a big bearing on a lot to both animal and plant lives. Good to remember that ‘homo sapiens’ which is a scientific identity for man in the animal kingdom, includes the reader and I. Climate changes may sound like one of normal progression of evolving identities but they are very fatal to a proper conservation of species most of which are good for tourism, pharmaceutical production, and other important research activities.

The input of human kind to the damage of the environment is dynamic. It comes, as to my keen observation, in two folds. The first one is due to what man takes from the natural environment: as I have already briefly explained above, cutting down of trees from the environment affects the whole ecosystem of living things. Literally, meaning that some naturally tree dwelling animals will no longer have a place to stay, to reproduce and to survive, the consequence of which is abnormal behaviour (Deviant from what that particular species in meant to have). This in turn develops a completely different characterization of the animals and then affect animal research results ( may be positive to a very small extent, but to a sound scientist, negative to a large extent as this is destroying life, depending on a philosophical argument a scientist can give).

Animals behave differently about reproducing themselves. It is very obvious that some animals will find it hard to mate at inconvenient places. Having destroyed a natural habitat, most likely mating places for some animals as well, species will not be reproducing, hence the whole of some animal families will completely die away with no offspring left. The world, including man as a stakeholder will be the one on the loosing side.

‘Survival of the fittest’ as postulated by Charles Darwin implies that the fittest animals will survive over those which are less fit, but surely, they will survive only if they have a place to survive on. Animals will never be able to make it, even when they have defeated all other animals by what I can call ‘natural conquest’ but all of its favourable environmental conditions required are not present. That species will consequently die away.

In all the above scenarios, I have described the impact of environmental mismanagement from a very simple but common mal act of cutting down trees in the expense of animal life. Again, animal life includes both mine and yours.

 

When the same concept is carefully extrapolated to the plant kingdom, one would be able to appreciate how much his or her actions are contributing to this global climatic change.

A very good indicator to what climate changes has done to a probable inconvenience of the people of Malawi, central Africa is what has just been experienced at the end of 2008/2009 growing season. It has always been the case that rain stops between midi march to early march. This season, Malawi has experienced some prolonged rain which has to some extent led to maize becoming mouldy right in the fields, a poor pre-condition for storage. This kind of unusual phenomenon has been variably observable for some time now, all as a collective result of poor environmental management from household activities up to the factories.

On the same, I can include mining at the kayerekera (…the good is often entered with their bones…) and other mines in the world.

Bush fires, which are environmentally hazardous like those that frequent the zomba plateau, also play a big role in damaging the environment. Imagine how much of life, how much of valuable species, how much of the God given treasures we have destroyed!

The second fold is when people pump in wastes into the environment. Bush fires have brought more harm than the good if at all available in individual selfish acts. Industrialization is an evil that the Morden world can not manage to let go. The bad fumes are accumulating high up for our own doom.

I would recommend that each citizen of every nation be on guard for our environment. There are several legislative acts that if locally empowered, every one will be able to know that he or she is responsible for the environment they are living in.

I quote one of the points stated on the last day of the 3 days’ Copenhagen convention on the environment that “there is no excuse for inaction” towards the depletion of a life conducive environment and that we need to influence that interest for everyone to create a better world for us today and human offsprings to come.

 

If all African governments were able to include good environmental management in their political agenda and manifesto as part of ethics on energy sufficiency programmes, and most importantly, as an independent subject in the primary and secondary school curricula.

We need to take a powerful stand on this.

I hope Malawi will be both a reliable contributor and a beneficiary at the UN climate summit in December.

Let us love life!

 

 

Andrew