Balancing human and animal needs and rights
The living Planet Report 2016 released by the World Wildlife Federation presents a dismal future for the earth's fauna. According to the report, the earth's vertebrates have declined by 58 per cent in the last four decades. Thus going by the current rate of morbidity, the earth would lose two-thirds of its animal population by 2020, taking 1970 as the baseline. The anomalous decline is attributed to anthropogenic climate change, deforestation and to poaching. The report is a severe indictment of human activities that have led to such stupefying developments.
Thus, it opens up the hidden trove whereby the tussle between animal rights on the one hand and the human rights to develop and prosper on the other, is revealed. Animals, by virtue of their nature, cannot defend their rights. Homo sapiens are superior to animals as they are supposedly bestowed with ‘consciousness’ that has aspects as varied as intelligence, language and, most importantly, an ability to sympathise — and consequently a highly developed ability to accrue what is wrong and unjust. The strictures of animal rights are clear. Animals have equal rights on their natural habitats as much as the perpetually advancing human needs. And when they are in conflict, animal rights must prevail and given due diligence.
Nature has a fragile ecosystem. Any negative change will have a lasting impact and affect not just the flora and fauna but also human lives. In the beginning, this change may be limited to the most vulnerable of nations and areas, generally towns and cities that are low lying and settlements that are dangerously close to epicenters of future climate change. large mega-cities that are a pride of many nations today, will not have an ample opportunity to defend their physical heritage and human habitats. To understand the enormity of expected change, these diverse markers ought to be taken as warnings. And especially by climate change deniers in the United States, that still consider this important scientific change as not fool proof. The US, along with China, is the largest polluter in the world. It ought to be more responsible in its future actions. Carbon emissions and pollution do not recognise man-made boundaries of nation-states. If China emits poisonous gases, Chile or Guatemala may not be far from suffering its consequences. Geographical distances have little relevance as far as the earth's ecosystem is concerned.
The earth's environment and atmosphere function as commons. And every economically and technologically advancing nation uses the resources of the commons without ameliorating the side-effects of its industrial actions. It falls on humans and individual states to do what is right to protect life in all its varied forms. The primary threat faced by declining species is habitat loss. This is increasingly being caused by logging, agriculture and change in freshwater systems. The foremost responsibility must be to balance human and animal needs.