The Ultimate Killer Control- called Ingratitude

I was reading a well written, passionate book related to environment (Our Environment by Laeeq Futehally) and certain thoughts were triggered on reading.. how in a forest all the plants and animals are present in relation to the dominant species! For example in a typical rain forest an almost solid roof is formed by the tops of large trees. The dense mass of leaf material makes a permanent ceiling for the entire forest (since the trees are not deciduous). This prevents direct sunlight from reaching the ground, which means that there is little undergrowth.

It is obvious that because of the dominant tree canopy through out the year, only shade loving plants flourish except in pockets where a tree has fallen and sunlight enters in till the space is filled up again. It is also obvious that according to the dominant flora of a habitat are the fauna that survive in these habitats (animals etc dependent on the plants prevalent in a habitat).So the climax condition in any habitat is very much in accordance with the dominant species.

Nature has always been rearranging itself over its course of evolution according to the dominant species of each time frame. I wouldn’t say therefore that the destruction that has happened of nature is not natural!This may seem an odd statement, but consider this; It is nature’s course to create the environment as per the dominant species, which currently for the largest habitat Earth is Man..

Man has been altering the habitat Earth as per his whims and fancies. Which is in fact quite natural considering that nature created man an intelligent species which had the capability to overcome it’s natural enemies. Though all species occupy their own niche in a habitat in equilibrium, not encroaching on another's territory or food, still it would be wrong to say that it is on account of an all embracing charecteristic of the wild species. There is behind this undeniably the law of the survival of the fittest,which is quite a 'me first'or in other words a selfish charecteristic.In fact two species cannot occupy the same niche (role) for a long time because it results in competition which in turn results in the survival of the fittest and elimination of the other. Selfishness is also therefore a natural trait and each species' populaton is checked by each other's selfishness(more often than not).

Moreover a species that is introduced in an environment where it has no natural enemies, spreads uncontrollably, eating away resources that were for all the inhabitants of the habitat. Like the water hyacinth which is a native of South America brought to India as a garden plant. Having no natural enemies in India, it multiplies at a tremendous rate, and soon covers all of the water surfaces. It is a greedy plant that drinks up all the water of the lake on which it grows quite like man exhausting all the resources that it survives on.. The only difference about Man from the hyacinth, is that Man is a species that has overcome its enemies and therefore has grown in population to such a proportion that it has sapped the life out of its own environment. The plants and animals that can survive are only the one’s that man the dominant species allows to survive, quite like how only shade loving trees can flourish in forest with a thick canopy(although the dominant trees have their own natural controls intact unlike man who has brought under control all it's enemies).

Natural again definitely considering Man's Intelligence, but our intelligence also shows us that unless we check our population and recede our encroaching uncaring steps, we will exhaust the very resources we survive on. For example if the rate at which we consume bamboo for paper is slower than the rate at which we replenish it by planting, then soon we would have to do without paper. Our intelligence is putting efforts to prevent further harm to environment, but the effort is feable compared to the relentless and enormous damage to environment that we do collectively everyday.

Now the ultimate control has to be therefore with nature alone that created all this mess by creating Man. Our dominance of nature has not been against the natural growth and climax in natural habitats, and so it is only natural that there has to be a check not far off in future that is predestined for a species like ours. Aren’t we the dominant species altering our habitat making it unsuitable for our own survival which is what does happen naturally in succession (called reaction) in habitats which eliminates that errant species? Nature has never been helpless;it always has a check for everything, however slow in coming. The exhausting resources will itself check the population growth. Nature may be too loving to do anything overt, it only just recedes to non existence due to lack of love of its inhabitants.

The Natural Killer Control of the Intelligent, powerful, dominating, thoughtless and selfish species therefore,... is it's own ungratefulness! The end of such a greedy species such as water hyacinth and man is in the exhaustion and so destruction…of both; the habitat (nature) and consequently the ungrateful species. This end also looks natural in the whole scheme of things. Everything that has a beginning has a natural end.

Ungratefulness is the ultimate killer, or lets say the ultimate control. It saps the life blood out of the parent, the provider and finally with its death dies the dependent too.. The provider dies a slow death unloved, unappreciated, uncared and abused. Even if we cannot learn to be grateful, still, if we the self loving species have to save ourselves, we have to stop abusing and spitting on our one and only provider, the mother Earth..But then at this uncontrolled pace of human progress we do seem to have gone beyond the point of a ‘comeback’...For there is no killer like the killer called ingratitude. It has a life, movement and all devouring pace of its own that is not checked even by self love.