Just watched a very interesting documentary about the loneliest animal on the planet - Lonesome George. Lonesome George is the name given to the last remaining Pinta Island Giant Tortoise in existence; when he dies, his race will be completely extinct.
Due to his extremely rarity, Lonesome become a conservation icon, celibate pensioner and officially the rarest living creature on Earth of his native Galapagos Islands. Behind the conservation icon, he is also showing the crudeness and irresponsible of human activities that done to our own mother nature. Many wildlife is still in the hardship of preserving their unique life with threats from illegal fishing, the demands of a booming population and an ever-expanding tourism or so-called eco-tourism industry.
The documentary I watched called “Lonesome George and the battle for Galapagos” from BBC, and just showd in the Peral. It is very well filmed. It not only talks about the personal story of Lonesome but also brings out the social and environmental implications behind the tortoise.
The documentary made me a bit sad as it shows clearly how selfish and greedy of human being who extracts and squeezes the last sort of environmental resources for money (which is only papers attached with a vague value). For instance, the documentary mentioned that fishermen in Galapagos over fish the sea cucumbers and tortoises for their customers from far east ( I bet the majority of “far east customers: are Chinese….); national parks has to give out some land as residential or hotel areas for the influx immigrants due to the booming eco- tourism industry; fishermen got angry and attacked the conservation officials when the government imposed policy to prevent over-fishing…..it really sucks!!
Now what I can only grumble here... but i do hope that i can be more sensitive to reduce my personal footprint on our nature.
No comments:
Post a Comment