are we REALLY stewards ? ...

Over the years, have you noticed how rapidly the numbers of human beings increased? Well, this is obviously something good, but at the same time .. we're taking over the world. As the population increases, we tend to take over more and more space; the more people we have, the more buildings we need. So being "stewards" like us, we decide to take over the animals' and plants' habitats, instead of trying to protect them.

In my opinion, as we are doing this, I don't think it ever comes to our minds that this may affect the habits of these species. If animals start to become extincted, they will lose all biodiversity. For everyone who does not know what biodiversity is, it is defined as the sum of an area's genes, species, and ecosystems. The better an area's biodiversity, the tougher their immune system. Since biodiversity includes not only one type of species, this specie will contain all the inherent genetic variations; which will *for example* make an army to defend the different types of diseases.

Now imagine this, you're dehydrated and you feel like you're bodies shrinking, your skin's puckering, your eyes are receded into orbits and your tongue starts to swell up and crack. As time goes by, your brain cells start to shrivel up and your muscles are seize. Then your kidneys shut down. Your blood volume drops, triggering a hypovolemic shock, you cannot breath anymore and suddenly you go into cardiac arrest. Shockingly this may seem, this is what happens when everything in your body starts to fail, in other words, this is what happens when you die. According to a United Nations report on the state of the global environment, they have estimated that there are more than 11,000 endangered animal and plant species - including more than 1,000 mammals which is almost a quarter of the world's total. Do you realize how terrible this is?

For example, the other day, i came along an article that said:

"Siberian tigers may vanish within three decades" - Corinne Podger.

Three decades is actually a really short time period. Would you like to know why Siberian tigers are becoming extincted? This is because we, human beings chose the wrong choice into being poachers. This is mainly a big problem in Suklaphanta, which is situated close to Mahendranagr on the Indian border. The current political and economic situation has resulted in an accelerated exploitation of resources in the region, among which poaching currently represents the most immediate threat to wildlife. There are rapid increasing numbers of tigers that are killed for their pelt and tiger parts, especially bones. (which are then sold for USD 3,000-5,000+ as attractive items) Thanks to poaching, habitat loss, and population fragmentation, the population of the Siberian tiger has vastly decreased. In fact, there are only about 450 of them left in the wild. As the population of tigers decrease, the less variation the cubs will obtain due to biodiversity. Since the cubs do not obtain various types of genetics which are immune to some sickness, these cubs may die easily due to lack of food in the foodchain, diseases and other causes.

With many different types of species becoming extincted day by day, our food chain will eventually end and we will eventually die too.. If we really want to be stewards of of the world, we should stop being so selfish, and actually consider helping out and trying to fix the problems we have caused in this world.



http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/animal-extinction--the-greatest-threat-to-mankind-397939.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2000325.stm

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Siberian-Tiger-Populations-Drop-89150.shtml

http://www.panda.org/who_we_are/wwf_offices/russia/projects/?uProjectID=RU0005

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/siberian-tiger.html