Daily Times

Recent estimates indicate that 200 species of life (plants, birds, animals, fish, amphibians, insects, reptiles) are being driven to extinction each day. This rate exceeds that during the last mass extinction event, when the dinosaurs vanished 65 million years ago. Since the turn of the century, we have lost forever the Pyrenean ibex, St Helena olive, Baiji dolphin, Liverpool pigeon, eastern cougar, West African black rhinoceros, Formosan clouded leopard, Chinese Paddlefish, the golden toad and the Rockland grass skipper butterfly.

Unlike the ‘background rate’ of extinctions through prehistoric time, it is humans who have accelerated this rate to its current level. How have we done this? Well, human activity now impacts heavily all over the planet and we are using a variety of sophisticated industrial technologies to destroy other life forms in vast numbers. This inevitably results in the extinction of some species.

In some cases we simply hunt these life forms to extinction as a result of some misguided commercial imperative. Whether it is for food (such as whales and many species of fish), trophies (such as ‘big game’ animals), raw materials (such as the ivory of elephant tusks) or some delusional belief in their aphrodisiac or medicinal qualities (such as the horn of a rhinoceros), we kill them with sophisticated murderous technologies such as harpoons, fishing nets and guns (against which they have no evolutionary defence). To give one example: sea turtles. Six out of the seven subspecies of sea turtles are endangered, according to Wildcoast. Why? Sea turtles are threatened due to the poaching and hunting of their shells, meat and eggs. Turtle eggs are sold as a snack with the absurd belief that they possess aphrodisiac elements.

But mainly, it is two things that drive species over the edge: our systematic destruction of land habitat — forests, grasslands, wetlands, peatlands and mangroves — in our endless effort to capture more of the Earth’s wild places for human use (whether it be residential, commercial, mining, farming or military) and our destruction of waterways and the ocean habitat by dumping into them radioactive contaminants, carbon dioxide, a multitude of poisons and chemical pollutants, and even plastic. There are now dead zones in several oceans of the world, not to mention the great floating garbage patches.

In an extensive academic study that was recently concluded, the more than 150 joint authors of the report advised that “most of the world’s 40,000 tropical tree species now qualify as globally threatened.” Why are more than 40,000 tropical tree species threatened with extinction? Because “upwards of 80,000 acres of rainforest are destroyed across the world each day, taking with them over 130 species of plants, animals and insects.”

Relatively speaking, we pay a lot of attention to big and colourful species but the species you have never heard about or which are less ‘exotic’ need to be valued too, such as frogs that, among other invaluable services from a limited human perspective, eat malarial mosquitoes. “Frogs have survived in more or less their current form for 250 million years, having survived countless ice ages, asteroid crashes and other environmental disturbances, yet now one-third of amphibian species are on the verge of extinction.” (http://www.savethefrogs.com/)

If so far you have been unconcerned about the fate of our fellow species, you would be wise to reconsider. If you have not checked them lately, there are lists of critically endangered, vulnerable and near threatened species. But heading all of these lists, there should be one other: homo sapiens. With human extinction now possible by 2030 we do not have much time left to respond to powerfully. Humans, as many ecologists have been noting for decades, are only one part of the web of life. Our fellow species make the earth habitable. We cannot live here without them.

So the key question is not do you really want to live in a world without elephants; the key question is: do you really want to live? If you do, then you need to act. At the simplest level, you can make some difficult but valuable personal choices. Like becoming a vegan or vegetarian, buying/growing organic/biodynamic food and resolutely refusing to use any form of poison. But if you want to take an integrated approach, the biggest impact you can have as an individual is to systematically reduce your own personal ‘ecological footprint’ in consideration of our fellow species.

If you wish to consider such an approach, you are welcome to ponder joining those participating in The Flame Tree Project to Save Life on Earth (http://tinyurl.com/flametree), which outlines an easy series of steps for reducing your consumption in seven key resource areas by 10 percent per year for 15 successive years while simultaneously building your self-reliance. You can also consider signing the online pledge of The People’s Charter to Create a Nonviolent World (http://thepeoplesnonviolencecharter.wordpress.com), which obviously includes nonviolence towards our fellow species.

In addition, you can participate in ongoing campaigns by a multitude of organisations that campaign to preserve one or more threatened species from extinction. If we can save enough other species, we might just save ourselves. Extinction might be howling outside our door but we do not have to cower waiting for someone else to save us. What you do personally makes a vital difference.

The writer has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of Why Violence and can be reached at flametree@riseup.net