Answer to the Questions posed to me by a scientist.

Q.1 Nature and its creatures must make dollars for humans?
Q.2 How many Wild animals we should have in India?
Maybe, I am a little outdated for I dont subscribe to the utilitarian view of the world. I
believe in a world created by a power that human mind cannot comprehend. It is common
knowledge that the Earth is the only planet known till now to harbour life and life on earth
is sustained by a complex process of interdependence.
As scientists and foresters We were taught ecology. When I hear some scientists and
foresters proposing that humans could very well assume the ecological roles that various
species play in nature, I am appalled. When somebody asserts that tigers are redundant as
humans can take over the role that a tiger (carnivore) performs in nature, he/she is either
oversimplifying or he is a degree holder without the knowledge of ecology and conservation
biology.
When somebody proposes that let us set our objectives how many animals 'we the
humans' can manage in India(or the world), it reeks of self-assumed supremacy of man'
which is as untrue as the assertion that the ocean is only a pool of sand. You can very well
manage a ranch but you can't manage a jungle same as you can very well make a test tube
baby but can't create even a single cell amoeba on you own. And who are we to decide how
many animals should be on this planet. Multicellular life on earth evolved around 580
million years ago but Homo sapiens that evolved only around 2 lakh years ago have
usurped everything on this planet seemingly for their own benefit rampaging every nook
and corner of the earth as if this planet is under the sole ownership of humans. To me, this
short-term benefit race looks like a marathon for self-destruction. Humans were not
running (ruining) the planet before that.
When carnivores are wiped out what happens to their umpteen camp-followers mongoose,
civet, jackal, hyena, vulture, tree pie, crow, maggot, and microorganism. And what
happens to the herbivores perhaps hundreds of men equipped with rifles and machine
guns would be sent out into the woods to exterminate herbivores to restore the balance of
nature. Our knowledge of nature's web is abysmal, we have no idea how the whole web
operates some trees cannot regenerate if some insects are not around and those insects
cannot reproduce if a certain type of plant is not around. And that certain type of plants
cannot grow if certain ecological conditions are not present I am alluding to the Brazil
nut story ; scientists have researched and learnt only a little about a handful of such
interrelationships in nature.
The proponent of "Man is GOD" theory in India forget that average Indian forest dweller
is still very tolerant to the losses he/she has been suffering from wild animals, why?
because killing is not in the nature of Indians. The culture and ethos of this country are
entirely at variance with what one would encounter in Africa and the West. The western
thinking is that all other living forms on earth have been created to serve humans, on the
other hand in India people worship trees and animals - in many parts of Indian jungle,
village folks still worship bagh dev and Vandevi and protect sacred groves. Could a few
metamorphosed Indians change this with a lure of dollars; I doubt.
Suhas Kumar,21.8.2012