GT Writing Task 2 - Your comments please
Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2014 11:29 am
Some people think that human needs for farmland, housing, and industry are more important than saving land for endangered animals. Do you agree or disagree with this point of view? Why or why not? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
There is no iota of doubt in my mind that that saving land for endangered species is more important than utilizing it for human needs. Although there are reasons to explain my rationale (which are being discussed in the subsequent paragraphs), the first and foremost reason to support my view is that, all animals have the same right to live on this planet as any human being does, and we have no rhyme or reason to take it away from them just because somebody said ‘It’s the survival of the fittest!’.
Utilizing land for satisfying human need or improving trade and commerce could be a noble cause if such utilization takes place in arid or uninhabited places without disturbing the ecology and environment. Any development which can result in extinction of species could disturb the ecosystem of the place and subsequently affect human beings. Let us take the case of the rain forests in India, which is reducing at a very fast rate due to unplanned and forced human occupation. Rampant felling of tress has left hundreds of animals’ homeless putting many the verge of extinction. This has created an imbalance in the ecosystem. The effects of this human plunder were not known, until recently, when locals started complaining of an unknown disease, with many succumbing to death. Doctors concluded that due to the extinction of a species of bat from the forest, there has been a sudden increase of a viral carrying wasp on which, otherwise, these bats would be feeding on. Through the wasps the locals got affected by the virus which turned into a pandemic. No one could ever imagine such dire consequences due to animal extinction.
Apart from affecting human lives, extinction may lead to environmental hazards which can have far reaching consequences. Scientists argue that many parts of central Africa have become dry in the past 60 years due to an increase in the number of herbivores viz. deer and zebra. These animals multiplied twenty times in last 60 years and have slowly eaten into the forest. Their sudden increase can be attributed to the steady decline of a number of carnivores like African wild dogs, hyenas and lions who have lost their habitat due to human occupation. These lands, which were once green pastures, have slowly turned into dry and arid wastelands.
A vast majority of the human population is slowly awakening to the thought that progress at the cost of nature cannot be sustainable. We need to take up progress as an opportunity to give back to the environment and not the other way by destroying the flora and fauna.
There is no iota of doubt in my mind that that saving land for endangered species is more important than utilizing it for human needs. Although there are reasons to explain my rationale (which are being discussed in the subsequent paragraphs), the first and foremost reason to support my view is that, all animals have the same right to live on this planet as any human being does, and we have no rhyme or reason to take it away from them just because somebody said ‘It’s the survival of the fittest!’.
Utilizing land for satisfying human need or improving trade and commerce could be a noble cause if such utilization takes place in arid or uninhabited places without disturbing the ecology and environment. Any development which can result in extinction of species could disturb the ecosystem of the place and subsequently affect human beings. Let us take the case of the rain forests in India, which is reducing at a very fast rate due to unplanned and forced human occupation. Rampant felling of tress has left hundreds of animals’ homeless putting many the verge of extinction. This has created an imbalance in the ecosystem. The effects of this human plunder were not known, until recently, when locals started complaining of an unknown disease, with many succumbing to death. Doctors concluded that due to the extinction of a species of bat from the forest, there has been a sudden increase of a viral carrying wasp on which, otherwise, these bats would be feeding on. Through the wasps the locals got affected by the virus which turned into a pandemic. No one could ever imagine such dire consequences due to animal extinction.
Apart from affecting human lives, extinction may lead to environmental hazards which can have far reaching consequences. Scientists argue that many parts of central Africa have become dry in the past 60 years due to an increase in the number of herbivores viz. deer and zebra. These animals multiplied twenty times in last 60 years and have slowly eaten into the forest. Their sudden increase can be attributed to the steady decline of a number of carnivores like African wild dogs, hyenas and lions who have lost their habitat due to human occupation. These lands, which were once green pastures, have slowly turned into dry and arid wastelands.
A vast majority of the human population is slowly awakening to the thought that progress at the cost of nature cannot be sustainable. We need to take up progress as an opportunity to give back to the environment and not the other way by destroying the flora and fauna.