Page 22 - Dainfern Precinct Living 3 2021
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NATURE
THE POWER
OF ONE
BY JAMES CLARKE, MAIN PHOTOGRAPH BY MARY BROADLEY
Above: It’s not a question of saving wildlife species from oblivion – the basic task
is saving the ecosystems on which their survival has forever depended.
The future of nature OVID-19 has brought He used (mostly) Latin so the world’s
various language groups could all
thinking people to their
conservation, globally, senses. Across our use one language for scientifically
stricken planet, now
labelling organisms. The educated
that even humanity
is at a critical stage, Cperceives an assault world could now understand the
uniqueness of each organism The
but I believe there is upon its own species, we are dodo, that weird giant pigeon,
was assigned the name Raphus
suddenly aware of a dire need to
cucullatus and I mention it to
rearrange our values regarding the
now more hope than future of wildlife. illustrate a point.
there has been since On cue, a book has just been The public was becoming aware
of the uniqueness of every kind of
published in New York by a widely
worldwide extinctions acclaimed 47 year-old American living organism and, also, now began
to understand that human-induced
science writer, Michelle Nijhuis. Her
began accelerating book is called Beloved Beasts. extinction meant the abrupt end of an
irreplaceable, once-living creature or
200 years ago. Nijhuis (she likes her name to plant. The dodo, discovered in Mauritius
be pronounced to rhyme with
in the 16th century, was wiped out by
‘my house’) is a magazine
sailors in the 17th century.
journalist covering the fields of
nature conservation and climate Because of what was often totally
change. Her book provides an thoughtless and ill-considered human
historical survey of two centuries activities, countless thousands of
of conservation efforts beginning species of plants and animals have
with Carl Linnaeus in the 1700s, been obliterated since Linnaeus’
who introduced a sense of order in time. Consider birds alone: out of
discussing the natural world. approximately 11 154 surviving
species 159 have, like the dodo,
Linnaeus formalised a system become extinct and roughly a quarter
of classifying and naming each are threatened – some critically. If
organism – animal and vegetable – nothing is done, then one third of
by giving each a name for its genus all bird species and an even greater
and its species. Humans became proportion of birds by volume, will
Homo sapiens (Homo = man, be gone by the time today’s toddlers
The dodo sapiens = wise). reach retirement.
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