Cover-up? Something genuine?

We all know about the recent Australian bushfires that have killed a billion animals and some 25 people. We also know how they decided to kill 10,000 camels because they are searching for water near communities where people live- something that’s totally unacceptable by any standards. Even if your country is faced with the worst of droughts, there’s something called an international community to co-operate with and send these animals to another country either temporarily or permanently, and countries would readily support such a humane initiative compared to killing them and claiming that it’s humane. I mean, this is like deciding to kill all those people who are malnourished because they need too much food. There’s literally no acceptable argument in Australia’s favour in this regard which the currently developed human civilization would accept although there may be two sides to it. I mean, there are two sides to the argument about Earth’s geometry- something so obvious to mankind since several millennia. So two sides are always bound to be, but to choose the side of righteousness is always unilateral. So no, it’s unacceptable.

Let’s look at the real reason for this destruction. And there’s a familiar reason all over the world. You see, Australia has taken too much land for animal agriculture- raising livestock for meat and dairy products, and animal agriculture generates a lot of greenhouse gases which increases local temperatures, making the already dry Australian bushes even drier, making the spread of fires easier. So now you have created the perfect conditions for a widespread fire and when the dry season begins, which it does, even the smallest of bushfires can grow to consume entire forests. Oh, and all of this even after knowing the harmful effects of animal agriculture and excessive meat consumption. Of course, lack of knowledge is not an excuse in the 21st century where information literally travels at the speed of light. It’s just the money that the governments receive that triggers them to grant more permits for livestock raising farms.

But in the middle of all this, two things have been happening in Australia and they offer a lot of optimism. The first being the sort of response from the people. People have gone out there and rescued animals from dying in the fire. The internet is filled with many such instances of people rescuing Koalas and Kangaroos, bringing them to rescue shelters and their homes to raise them. I think the world needs to learn from Australians who are spending time to do something which we humans were created for- caring for the planet which we share with several trillion other animals. Australia is also doing something that sounds very sensible, kind and glamorous for a nation. They’re air-dropping around 2 tonnes of carrots and sweet potatoes for Wallabies to eat. These animals it seems, survive the initial fire but tend to face stress because of the after-effects, namely food scarcity in the burnt forests. That is by far one of the best disaster management strategies that I’ve heard any country adopt, that too for forest animals. I think more countries need to adopt innovative and ingenious disaster management strategies like this, and lead by example concerning how to care for the planet in which we live, thereby caring for ourselves.

Now obviously I got all pumped up the first time I heard about this because such humane practices are very hard to come by these days, especially from the government of a developed nation. Now whether this is a cover-up for what the country failed to do before or something genuine to tackle the problem of loss of wildlife is questionable, and as I said earlier, there could be two sides to this too. But what matters here is that while we hold every act of inhumane practice accountable, we also need to support such humane actions and praise governments that take such steps.

Of course, there is a danger of the government neglecting to prepare for the next season of wildfires just like this year, but with increasing positive pressure on the necessity to act on global issues like climate change, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, etc. the chance of a government repeating the same mistake is becoming increasingly slim by the day.