Kamis, 25 Februari 2010

How to save endangered animals in Indonesia

I had heard a lot about saving animal. From a whale in river Thames, elephants in Chiang Mai, Panda in China, Polar bears in the Poles, some frogs species in Costa Rica, until a rare Tazmanian butterfly in wherever Tazmanian butterfly lives, because it's very rare. Saving animal never came across my mind for I grew up in a world of human chauvinist. If I gave a bit my lunch to a lost, thin, starving, dirty cat meowing under a rubbish bin, my parents would yell at me, "No meat for you tonight. You'd better share your food with your siblings next time!" For the sake of 'adequate nutritional intake' in my childhood, I had to feed lost animals very, very secretly since then.

But now since being an environmentalist becomes an emerging trend, I decided to take part in saving my world (from annual flood, daily air pollution, all times rubbish. Not so far until global warming and walrus. They're too far away. And not included earthquakes. They're part of fate). Saving animals is included. Regarding my unsuccessful experiences in my younger days, I started developing new methods in saving animals. I made an attempt to explain that animals are part of the nature, balance of the food chains, have important role in ecosystem and heritage for our children and so on and so forth and bla bla but to no avail. Sadly the word "greenpeace" only means a bunch of people, claiming themselves conservationists but the mere thing they do is standing in a shopping mall, explaining about their project in a language that hardly understood by normal people-but you have to pretend to follow them unless you want to look ignorant- and eventually: asking for our credit card number. Not to mention that they will send a membership card saying you have participated in Greenpeace movement. Yeah, that's so cool. I'll call them if my greenpeace membership card gets drifted in the flood.

This new technique I want to show you, works better. To save an endangered animals in Indonesia, you'd rather:
  1. Claim the animal as a magical being, not a real animal, but actually another shape of human with supranatural power who seeks for something mystical. By calling it binatang jadi-jadian or ngepet, the poor animal will obtain another chance to live, because nobody dare to harm it. The drawback is, if there's someone claim himself/herself having paranormal power and decide to kill it for the sake of paranormal hierarchy, then the animal is now more endangered than before. It's a bit tricky to deal with occultism, in fact. Still, it's more promising than greenpeace in the shopping malls.
  2. Spread the issue that the animal brings a good luck. Like arwana or lohan fish. Suddenly everybody loves them and in every corner of fish stall, everybody sells the fish with a high price. No wonder a lot of people try to breed the fish. Conclusion: the fish saved from extinction.
  3. Say that an animal has a curative effect, when alive. It's common to say that some animals bring health or enhance well-being, but when eaten. This, of course, doesn't work. Say that they bring more health and enhance more well-being (we can add improve sexual ability here) when they live happily, healthily and in a good shape (means not dead or cooked in a ginger sauce).
  4. Claim that the animal is good for feng-shui, business or anything to do with prosperity. Same reason as number two.
  5. Make saving animal a trend. If we can make a good-rating television program about how a cool dude rescuing an orang utan baby (without becoming Tarzan. Tarzan is so out of date) and then give it a free life in its habitat, perhaps some people will give their credit card number to support greenpeace saving orang utan in Kalimantan forest.
I'm glad that now Indonesia has conserved komodo dragon in komodo island although some said they had prey on human beings. Apart from the human slaughtered part, for sure. Yet they're thousands of birds, fishes, reptiles, mamals and big mamals get endangered in Indonesia. Deforestation, pollutions, and irresponsible huntings have threatened the land that is very rich of biodiversity. For how long should we rely on the greenpeace agency selling projects in the shopping malls?

2 komentar:

Fanda mengatakan...

No.2 and no.4: you can only do this in rural area. People in modern city has a more critical mind, I don't think they will easily believe on such things (sooner or later people will know the truth).

I think no.5 is the most likely solution. *beginning to think of an ad just like Gudang Garam strong guy who climb mountain*

In your last paragraph: Yet they're thousands of birds, fishes, reptiles, mamals and big mamals get endangered in Indonesia... Do you mean Yet there are?

Sri Riyati Sugiarto & Kristina Melani Budiman mengatakan...

Ha-ha. Thanks a lot for your points. Those suggestions are purely jokes. I'm being ironic. I mean, because we are still busy about ourselves, we don't have awareness to save endangered animal. But surprisingly a lot of people believe in occultism. True, especially in the countryside. In Papua, people kill birds of paradise with ease, because they want to make a nice hat!

A trend will fade too. It must begin with awareness, from within.

You're so d*mn right. Wrong spelling! Tet-tet! Thanks for noticing that Fanda *thumbs up*