Peace for Humans, Extinction for Other Species

We always talk about world peace as a very sacred and lofty goal. I once watched the Miss Universe contest on TV. The contestants are very beautiful girls from all over the world. The contest involves evaluation of not only physical beauty and looks, but also talents in swimming, dancing, singing, debating, and many other skills. After many tests, five finalists are selected. In a final test each of these finalists was asked to respond to one question. That question was ``If you are granted just one wish, what will it be?''. The winning finalist's response was ``world peace''. She explained that it means peace for all the people all over the world. She received very wild applause, and was selected as Miss Universe for that response. We human beings are so very self-centered. We talk about peace only for ourselves. The numbers of other large animals and trees etc. are already down to very small numbers due to merciless killing by the already 7 billion and soon to be 15 billion humans. For example, the coastal waters of Florida are home to a very gentle creature called the manatee. Today only about 200 manatees are left. Don't the manatees deserve peace at least now? Or should these small number of manatees also perish by being crushed by the pleasure boats of mankind cruising off the coast of Florida? In the same way the coastal waters around Hong Kong are home to very beautiful pink dolphins, of which only about 300 are left. Don't these 300 remaining pink dolphins deserve some peace at least now? They are perishing due to human encroachment of their home in reclamation projects in the shallow waters off Hong Kong coast. In the same way the 150 mountain lions still left in California, a few thousand elephants, lions, tigers, gorillas in Africa, Asia; a few thousand majestic mahogany trees in South America, a few hundred rhinoceros in India, etc. deserve some peace for themselves at least now. Their home is being encroached upon by the ever growing human population relentlessly. Let me relate an experience from my childhood. As a teenager growing up in India, I remember going on a vacation trip by boat on Kolleru lake (a huge shallow lake, wetlands area) with my family in the 1940s. It was a sailboat maneuvered by two oarsman, and did not have any motor powered equipment on it. To my kid's eyes the lake appeared very huge. Our destination was a temple for the lake goddess Kolleru on a small island in the middle of the lake. It took us two whole days to reach the temple, and another two days to return. All along we saw innumerable types of water fowl, and an abundantly growing lake tree called ``bendu'' (``cork''). The trees have two to four inch thick trunks of corklike material which was white, very soft and spongy inside and with a green colored bark on the outside. We kids had lot of fun fighting with each other with the branches of this tree. You can hit siblings with great force with this branch, but it would not hurt because of the softness of the wood. During a recent trip to India, I went to visit Kolleru again. Alas, the lake is completely gone! It was drained for building houses for the growing human population, and for growing more rice for human consumption. All the nice waterfowl are gone, and the beautiful cork tree in that lake is now extinct. Unfortunately, the Lake Goddess was not able to protect her beautiful lake, and all the gentle creatures and plants she created in it, from being destroyed by humans. All these species have perished from human encroachment of their habitat. Today, the same devastation continues at a faster rate all over the world. Habitat encroachment is not the only thing. Many of the recent technological developments are actually very harmful to other species in nature. For example, the pollen of genetically modified corn has been shown to be highly toxic to many species of butterflies. We humans want peace to produce more of our own. Our actions, and treatment of other species is such that they can find peace only in their death and extinction. The growing human population is trampling many other species to a very rapid extinction.