Priorities
When talking about problems we talk about human problems. When we talk about race we mean it in between the human species. When global warming comes up, it is not really global warming what we are concerned about, but our own survival. When we fight for equal distribution of rights I’m afraid we limit ourselves to man and women (not even the poor people fit into this concerning yet). There are many problems in this world yes, but when solving them we never think about the other. Nature. Animals. Those directly affected by our sense of priorities. Those who, I hope I’m wrong, will disappear before I get to meet my grandchildren. What about the other species in this planet? What about their problems?
We see articles about deforestation, Cambodia for example, the only place left on the world where you can encounter tigers, elephants, rhinos and orangutans living together in the wild. Their ecosystem has been victim of deforestation and “dropped to about 55 percent, down from 73 percent in 1993” (Kibria, 2016) because of exotic wood demand from Vietnam and China and the palm oil industries from North America and Europe (Rainforest-rescue.org, 2016). As if burning and cutting down their natural habitat wasn’t enough, these species are also chased individually. The fur of the tiger sells according to a 2015 report around 16 880 USD (Poachingfacts.com, 2016); the rhino and elephants horns demand has only but increased since they have been registered as endangered kinds (savetherhino.org, 2016), and a big network of female orangutan prostitution is responsible of a great percentage of its decay as a species (Perez, 2014).
At the same you are reading this, wars are being fought for the same reasons battles started hundreds of years ago, but talking about wildlife, who is fighting for them?
It is difficult to understand how our everyday activities are related to this matters; but, the key point here is to understand the root of the problem, who is the demand? Who wants to keep eating Nutella (which its main ingredient is palm oil) no matter what? Who wants to keep watching endless hours of TV? Who wants to keep eating meat because is delicious? You, and me. We are the demand. While these actions might seem harmless reality is that at a mass scale they have become a privilege that benefits only the comfort of a few for a great sacrifice but, priorities right?
Another example is the cattle industry, and how “it is responsible of 15% of the global warming” (Carrignton, 2014) because of its resource consuming and extreme amount of waste. One of the most direct repercussions of this is the melting of the artic, in other words the home of all polar species including the great white bear. This beautiful creature is predicted to exist only on the small cage of a zoo by 2050 (Neslen, 2015). And so, the biggest mammal carnivore becomes nothing.
The list goes on, sea life will become sushi, elephants, neckless´; baby seals, coats; lions, carpets; crocodiles´, boots. All this caused by an impulse of nothing more than greed, simple, usual, greed. It is not a sustainable system since it is not based on a balance consumption and neither is economic since the waist doesn’t feed the need. It wasn’t agriculture or the industrial revolution that got the other species to this terminal and definite future, it was the idea that some lives matter more than others. And honestly, I cannot help but wonder… Would it be any different if animals could speak? Complain? Vote? Would we save them in the name of democracy and freedom then?
We have placed ourselves in a very convenient position as “the most intelligent species” and it is this same smartness that has doomed us and sadly, every other passenger in this planet.
This project has the purpose to make an instant visualization of that price that we are willingly paying every day with hundreds of lives that have done nothing to us, have no power to defend themselves and most importantly, have the same right if not more, to live.
Click on link to see the posters done by me. https://www.behance.net/gallery/51142917/Making-the-link