How many of them are left? How far do they fight the battle of extinction?  What are their abilities of survival? Is it fair on them?  The reference to “THEM” in  the above questions   are the other half animal species that share the niche on every aspect of survival on planet earth while the other  half, hunts them down. One species is over powering the other species  is defying the law of balance of nature and if it continues for long the game of survival of the fittest starts.

Hundreds of wild plants and animal are harvested every year for their medicinal value , for food or as pets. A lot of these activities of human intervention in the wild cause exploitation to other species as well as their natural habitat. It also poses risk of people engaging in activities against the law  for possessing  of  the plants and animals.

In Buengkan Province every Tuesday and Friday there is an street market open until noon.                   

Talat Lao

The market is called “Talat Lao."  A lot of the vendors are from Laos. The market has variety of products for sale from clothes to fresh vegetables, fruits, household items and wildlife products.  I was in real state of shock to see how freely some people had displayed wild animal products on sale. I always thought people had a black market system for dealing in animal product.  There were  police walking around but it seemed fine to sell them. Wild life trade seemed so normal in the locality.

The products range from Rhino horns of all sizes, bear claws, elephant tusks, animal hide, birds, flesh of wild boars, dead  squirrels,frogs,                                                                                         birds, and some dried lizard species.

The animal product is sold because of the medicinal value and as a  trophy. Rhino horns, elephant tusk and the bear tooth or claws are seen as  objects of good luck and as a gems. While some of the vendors did not let m touch it because I was with a camera but upon asking them about the products they did answer some of my questions. It seemed that some of the vendors did not even know if it were fake or original products because they bought it in Laos and were selling in Thailand where as some of the Vendors were very convincing that they were real(good salesman ship)

In any sense to sell animal product, real or fake it is ethically wrong.  Selling real wildlife product is Illegal in most countries, while the fake product equally poses threat to wildlife because it is encouraging wildlife trade. Animal print fashion trend should not be encouraged as well. The message these trends passes is wrongly interpreted by those who buy the product and those who sell. The ones who buy develops the urge own a real animal hide which is in fact tempting the people who sell to provide them because the cash flow high in this business. In this whole transaction the animals lose their live and in bigger scale they lose their entire species.

If only environment was all about the GREEN!

The complex relationship of the spheres of the earth isin’t enough to define environment in this current generation due to even more complex relation of these spheres with most advanced sphere as experts call it anthropogenic sphere. Human interaction with environment is a delicate matter because of phenomena like urban transition, globalization and fight for world power. It is shredding the resource piece by piece and the consequences are fairly returned by Mother Nature as environment problems which then the humans work to resolve. It is a cosmic drama of human character in the play of the earths system until someone will get killed. So the question is who will die first humans or nature.

Globally environmental problems are rising such as increase in levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, marine pollution, air pollution, urban congestion , concrete wash in the wild, exploitation of wildlife so on and so forth

These are real world problem and are in action and the only thing that can stop causing further damage till the phenome “fire to flumes” is change in human attitude. The fundamentals of behavioral theory points out that our receptors can be tamed. Psychological studies suggest the strongest weapon to any war is the brains and what is prepared there. Governments can make environmental policies to mitigate or solve problems but how far is it ethical to impose those policies on people? Environmental management is a solution for loopholes in management environment. We can see the symptoms of the sick earth system but there is less effort in understanding the causes. It is like cutting off a branch of a tree because it was infected when the actual infection is based in the roots. The treatment for the infection is through thought process.

Education and awareness is the bed of transition for germinating positive environmental attitudes. I can speak for myself because I have walked down the lane of environmental love. In 2009 I applied for a bachelor’s degree in Royal Thimphu College in Bhutan under a combined course of English and Environmental studies. My pure intention was to study English literature and become a writer. I considered the other course as a compulsory subject that I had to just pass to graduate because all I knew about the subject was Environment meant nature and nature meant trees and plants and that was not at all exciting for me but I took it any how because compared to other courses it sounded an easy one.

With no aspiration in environment I started the course but it all changed when I graduated. During an internship I attended a workshop with WWF Bhutan for prevention of wildlife poaching and that’s exactly when I woke up.

 I wanted to know more about wild animals. I still remember when I first heard about Pheasants I did not know if it was an animal. There were a lot of surprises when I dived into the world of wildlife. My brain was inquisitive and transitioning to what I think is called PURPOSE. I had questions, nonstop questions and these questions led me to search for answers. I did not realize but I had entered the world of research. I loved discovering life and livelihood beyond what I saw.

 Science suddenly became my subject of interest and every semester after that “phase of transition” I finally found peace and value of my time and attendance in the environmental classes because I loved it.

I find relativity in the findings of the results from the paper “Environmental attitude of incoming and outgoing students of an environmental studies undergraduate degree course: case study at Royal Thimphu College, Bhutan” The outgoing students definitely have a positive attitude towards the environmental issues than the incoming students. It is a firsthand experience as a first batch of graduate of Royal Thimphu College. It has not just ignited a love for environment in me but it has brought me all the way to peruse higher education in environmental management. I am truly thankful for being able to be learning and contributing towards empowering environmental studies if not academically then in practice.