How to live harmoniously
Restoring Harmony – what to do?
The man is certainly superior to other creatures. It possesses sophisticated weapons, newer path-breaking technologies and above all, and well-developed brain. This superiority also bestows upon him the responsibility to help and protect the weaker animals. Our hope of restoring the broken bond between man and animal rests on whether man will realize it. We have to realize that we have to live in harmony with the nature, which includes the flora and fauna, to ensure our own survival.
That human beings – most of them - still have some place for animals in their heart is corroborated every day through small things. Think of the pleasure you get when the pet dog comes wagging his tail and licks your hand gleefully – or the cat purring in pleasure when fondled. Those few of us who have been fortunate to win the trust of an untamed animal or bird will understand the pleasant feeling which no word can express. Popularity of TV channels like Animal Planet and films like King Kong, Beautiful people, Dunston Checks in, Stuart little etc is a clear indication that there is a longing in the heart of every man for the harmony that once existed between us and the rest.
In order to re-establish the lost harmony, we have to eradicate or reduce the factors that caused disharmony. There are few specific tasks we have to undertake:
Reduction in man-animal conflict
Avoidance of meat and fish
Renouncing animal products
Respectful approach to animals
Curtailment of animal experiments
Banning of using animals
for human entertainment
Reduction in man-animal conflict
Man-animal conflict can be largely reduced if the wild animals have enough food and sense of security in the jungle itself. This can be ensured through forestation with plants and herbs consumed by birds and animals, minimization of human interference and stoppage of encroachment. To accommodate the increasing population, residential areas can be enhanced by using barren lands, land reclaimed from the sea and/or building high-rise residential complex. Where there are human habitations within or in the proximity of forest, fencing is a good idea of keeping man away from animal. The villagers, averse to the wild beasts from their experience, can be properly educated to realize the importance of the forest and animals. They can be trained and employed to protect the forest and its inhabitants for mutual benefit.
This approach will serve the additional objective of preventing poaching. In many instances, some of the villagers themselves resort to poaching for quick and easy money. In other cases, while the poachers are outsiders, they take the help of the villagers residing at the fringe of the forest. This nexus between the poachers and the villagers is very common in the National Parks of North-Eastern India, especially Kaziranga. If the inhabitants can be employed gainfully for forest jobs and they are given a share of the profit from forest produces, the evil profession can be stopped altogether. This scheme has brought considerable success to a conservation project on Manas National Park undertaken by “Aranyak”, an NGO in collaboration with the Forest Department of Govt. Assam, India and supported by WWF.
Avoidance of meat and fish
Eating of non-vegetarian food by man is a very old tradition and is an integral part of many cultures and religions. While the practitioners of non-vegetarianism can not be forced to denounce food of animal origin, they can be sensitized through awareness campaigns about the sufferings of the animals that are brutally killed for their consumption. Films and photos on how painfully these animals die can be a powerful tool in achieving this goal. If the consumers of fish and meat refuse to buy the products where the creatures are killed in barbaric manner, this violent practice will decline considerably. The abattoirs or private butchers can be encouraged to adopt other means of rapid and far less painful methods like overdose of barbiturates or anesthesia.
People may be educated of the negative sides of eating meat. Medical studies confirm that vegetarian diet is easier to digest, ensures supply of higher quality and quantity of nutrients and reduces anti-oxidants. Meat and egg are a source of cholesterol and too much of these affect our health badly. Many chemicals present in foods of animal-origin are harmful to human body. Meat-eating women have about 3.5 time higher risk of breast cancer than those who do not take meat. The list of famous people who were/are vegetarian is impressive. It contains names like Aristotle, Rabindra Nath Tagore, Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Pluto, Thomas Alva Edison and in more recent times, poet Allen Ginsberg, footballer Roberto Baggio, actors Brad Pitt & Leonardo De Caprio and many more.
Renouncing animal products
Since a large number of animals and birds are killed for their skin, fur or plumage, a great many lives may be saved if we stop using these products. There is alternative to almost all of these or they are not essential for our living. Animal leather can be replaced with synthetic leather. Artificial fur made of polyester and polyurethane is a good substitute for real fur since they look and feel nearly same. Most of all, pressure must be mounted on those people who are ready to spend enormous amount of money for objects made of exotic leathers and furs so that they desist from purchasing these products. If there is no buyer, naturally there will be no seller.
Respectful approach to animals
A precondition to living in harmony with the nature is to love and respect it. And animals and birds are part of the nature. We have to acknowledge that we alone do not possess the earth; that mother earth is the shelter of both – the man and the animal and that like us, non-human animals too need food and freedom. We need their friendship too. As George Eliot once said: “Animals are such agreeable friends - they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms”. Can this be expected from a human being?
Curtailment of animal experiments
The logic in favour of experiments on the animals on the premise that they are like us is unfounded. “Two grams of scopolamine kill a human being, but dogs and cats can stand hundred times higher dosages. A single Aminata phalloides mushroom can wipe out a whole human family, but is health food for the rabbit, one of the favorite laboratory animals. A porcupine can eat one lump without discomfort as much opium as a human addict smokes in two weeks, and wash it down with as much prussic acid to poison a regiment of soldiers. The sheep can swallow enormous quantities of arsenic, once the murderer's favorite poison. Morphine, which calms and anesthetizes man, causes maniacal excitement in cats and mice. On the other hand our sweet almond can kill foxes, our common parsley is poisonous to parrots, and our revered penicillin strikes another favourite laboratory animal dead - the guinea pig “As many as half the drugs that have been approved in the US and the UK after animal testing have subsequently had to be withdrawn because of harmful side-effects. Furthermore, there are alternatives to many tests that are currently done on animals - e.g. growing tissue or cell cultures from human cells in the laboratory”
A lot of public money is spent on these “behind the door” researches. In order to reduce the strain on man-animal relation, these brutal experiments must be curtailed considerably. The laboratories must be made to ensure that the animals are treated properly and if eventually they have to be killed, the process should be least painful.
Banning of using animals for entertainment
The use of unwilling animals and birds purely for the purpose of entertaining human beings is itself inhuman and the society should not support this. The gory bull-fight and likes should immediately be banned. In many countries including India, use of animals in circus have been banned. Keeping wild animals and birds (except few which do not face the threat of extinction) is also banned in India. Despite the law, there are many households who keep exotic birds like parrots, Mayna and Cockatoo in cages. It is the duty of the neighbours to inform the Authority of the confinement so that the caged bird can be rehabilitated. People have to realize that, to quote Sri Sanjib Chandra, brother of the great Bengali novelist Shri Bankim Chandra Chattopadhaya and an acclaimed writer in his own right, “The wild animal looks beautiful in the wild, as does the baby in her mother’s lap”.