We all
start off as students of wildlife studies wanting to see more animals, observe
and learn from them, touch them maybe and with age, we begin wanting to save
them from all that is threatening. Eventually, at various points in that learning
curve, we are encountered with what looks like a fork in the road. You realise
that the ‘defenders’, ‘experts’ and ‘protectors’ of wildlife were never one
person or one kind of person. You notice how many roads there are leading out
of that fork. You see that those roads often do not meet, or
are sometimes go in exact opposite directions. You realise that the only way
forward would be to pick a lane, take sides. It almost wholly decides your approach,
who you can associate with and how far your influence can reach.
Once you have decided that your
career will revolve around wildlife, you see that you now have options. Perhaps
too many. You could do science but then you feel this weight on your shoulders,
bordering on guilt, for making your science so academic. You could take your
science forward but then lose your ‘objectivity’. You decide to go into
conservation and then people ask you -but what is conservation? What are you
trying to conserve, for whom and for how long? Those questions get you
thinking. You ask around, and you notice that the term ‘conservation’ itself
holds different meanings to different people. But you doubt that that is really
relevant, as long as their intentions are good and true, until you realise that
it is tremendously important. It decides which fork in the road you saw
earlier, they took. If a person who felt
nature and wildlife prevailed over people is the one making managerial
decisions for a particular forested habitat, that spells out the fate of thousands
of people at a time. Meanwhile, there could be scientists studying an animal
somewhere else, who have the power through their knowledge to declare the
species as being of critical importance requiring inviolate space, but do not, because they are worried
for the lives of the people they would endanger by doing so.
So, you then come to understand that your
actions matter. Your actions have consequences, wide ranging, in the places you
would least expect and in magnitudes you may not be prepared for. You realise
then, perhaps a bit too late that you should have put more thought into it. Put
more thought how? Some would say that, taxing as it maybe, you have to have
that conversation with yourself about what conservation means to you, what
underlying philosophy drives you and how far you are willing to take the
responsibility and accountability of anything you do with it thereafter.
Could this conversation with yourself
help you decide which fork in the road you want to take? A scientist, people
say has it the easiest, with his research he can imply but is not obliged to
apply. Beyond that, it is up to those who want to actively protect wildlife to
decide what from the plethora of knowledge available, really needs to be
applied. Depending on their personal ideologies, the results of their hard work
could go in one of many directions, for instance towards the much debated divergent
conservationist or preservationist frameworks of protection.
Once immersed in the field of
protecting nature, you could take on a number of roles, grass root or top down,
in the media or in the board room, on the roads or in the court. Each avenue
brings with it a set of challenges and none of them, mind you, are for the
faint hearted. So, what if you are a
faint hearted person, passionate about wildlife and the environment? Where does
it leave you? You want to be a part, in some way that can effect change, but
you are not strong enough to put your life at risk or leave your family behind.
People will say that you could go with
what your heart tells you, so you decide that you want to investigate threats
to animals but you realise that you are not tough enough. So others tell you to
go where your skills bring value to the table, so you decide to study the
behaviour and ecology of animals, but you are advised that there is no time left
for this sort of science. Some others say that if you look carefully enough,
you will find a point where both, heart and skill meet. But how long do you
search before you find that point in or of your life? No one can tell you the
answer to that without the risk of influencing you with their biases. And if you
are a person of principles, you would want to make sure your choice is
bereft of anyone’s biases, bereft of what your peers tell you or what society
tells you, right?
By the end of it all you are likely
to just sit back in exhaustion after what seems to be a very convoluted thought
exercise about what exactly it is you really want to do. You then pick up your
mug of tea and look into your backyard and funnily enough remind yourself of
how it was that small clueless green caterpillar that you as an awestruck child
saw pupating on that plant, that really started this all.
