Will We Need to Build Another Noah's Ark?

I recently received a book for review, titled, Endangered Animals of India, brought out by DC Mango. Although, it is meant for children, the book can be appreciated by young adults as well. It features ten endangered animals of India, and it was very depressing to know that in some cases their population has been decimated to a couple of hundreds. Is there hope for their survival? Not so sure, for falling numbers could lead to many of them becoming extinct within this decade itself.

It made me wonder to what extent, akin to the great biblical flood, this metaphorical flood caused by human greed, is going to lead to mass scale destruction and desecration of forests, seas, rivers and lands? In the process, will all of 'nature' be eventually destroyed? Will future generations ever have the good fortune of seeing any flora and fauna in the wild?

I once saw a mind-boggling, earth-shaking kind of film titled Soylent Green, set in the far future. It envisaged a future in which most wildlife was a thing of the past, only 'seen' in films and documentaries shot when they had freely roamed the earth. The movie was grim and bleak, the very anti-thesis of the normal upbeat images that we usually see in futuristic films. Food supplies were inadequate owing to lack of land and water resources. Food had to be transported in armoured trucks as people desperately tried to lay their hands on the meagre supplies. This movie also predicted a future in which people were forced to live in abandoned broken down cars and trucks due to shortage of building materials and land to construct on. The film was so dark and gut-wrenching that I wanted to leave it halfway, but fear rooted me to my seat. Is that what the future could hold for us, I wondered?

And it could possibly come to pass. Owing to the rising flood of greed, lethargy, nonchalance and not-my-problem attitude, our natural heritage could soon be relegated to history if the tide is not stemmed, sooner rather than later. We need an awakening and some drastic solutions. What will they be? Perhaps scientists will resort to cloning in a desperate attempt to keep some of the species alive. Or, perhaps they will they try to preserve the DNA of the species in a gene pool somewhere - a modern day Noah's Ark in the hope of restoring them again to the wild some day, that is, if any such wilderness will still be around in the future.

It's time to stop and think and act – each and every one of us, each and every day. The future is in our hands.

Shamim Padamsee is the author of several books for children and founder of Young India Books

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