In the present era, conservation of wildlife and biodiversity has been much important to protect our mother earth, maintain a balanced and functional ecosystem, and ensure good human health. The future of our planet depends on our present deeds. We need to safeguard the natural environment as climate change has already started adversely affecting it. Nature, itself has been fighting against the global warming and through conservation work, we can contribute towards minimizing the issue of disastrous rise in temperature. Conservation promotes the sustainable use of nature by the human beings. Conservation work helps in controlling the undesirable obstacles like excessive pollution, extinction of precious wildlife species, occurrence of natural hazards, emergence of infectious diseases, etc.
Source: Kaibab National Forest, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Conservationists are those people or professionals who dedicate their time and efforts to conserve the wildlife and biodiversity of their surroundings or any part of their country or the world. They try to preserve the natural world as much as they can. Generally, those who have accomplished their Bachelors or Masters’ degree in Environmental Sciences / Zoology/ Botany/ Forestry/ Natural Sciences can be called as Conservation Biologist. But, those people who really give their contribution to conservation begin to be known as a Conservationist, whether he/she be an artist, an engineer, a doctor, a farmer, a layman or a student from different educational background.
There are many ways in which an individual contribute to the conservation work, foremost needed things are passion, patience and commitment from the inner heart. Actually, we don’t have to do anything extra for conservation, we can do conservation by doing whatever we are best at or using the talent we have. Conservation doesn’t only mean studying science, doing camera trapping, radio collar or studying the jungles, animals and plants. Conservation is linked with different fields like education, politics, social-sciences, law and justice, economics, medical science, technical field and so on. For example, if somebody is good at writing articles or blogs then, they can use their skills in grabbing the attention of concerned authority to prevent something which is not going to be good for the environment or simply deteriorating it. If somebody has good communication or teaching skills, then he/ she can contribute to conservation by spreading awareness on the importance of nature, what it has been facing, and the mitigation measures to the arising problems created by overpopulation growth, unmanaged development activities, etc. Social media is the strongest weapon in the present century. It can be used by the reporters, journalists and activists to raise their voice against the environmental problems. Software engineers and graphic designers can create apps to monitor the environmental effectiveness programs as wells as animation programs which give detail knowledge about the nature and wildlife. Conservation is not only possible by the efforts of the scientists & biologists. It needs mixed efforts from the diverse fields of people for strong and fruitful action which can really create a huge difference to the environment.
As partnership to achieve the goals is one of the most important sustainable development goals, in the same way, partnership among the individuals, communities and organizations is very important to carry out any project for conservation activities. Sponsors or donor organizations play a dynamic role by funding the conservation projects because of which the work can be done faster, more resources can be accessed and the project would be of high scale, more creative and productive. Partnership or collaboration with the organizations help to fulfill the demands of the conservation work, think as well as act bigger. Partnership with the local communities is a must as they are the ones who will be residing in the nature their whole life, utilizing the nature & its resources on the one hand and preserving them on the other. Involving the local people of rural areas in conservation activities is not only enough as they are very much dependent upon the forest and its resources for basic needs. Real change in conservation can be observed if the women are empowered and educated, locals are trained by skill development programs in such a way that they can create employment opportunities themselves or run a business.
The urbanization, industrialization, extension of agricultural land, development at a rapid pace and illegal hunting and poaching has led to the destruction of wildlife habitat and decrease in their number at a high alarming rate. We have a fear that our future generation may not be able to see the charismatic and attractive wildlife species. Also, due to the disappearance or decrease in number of keystone species, consequences like disturbance in the ecological processes and imbalance in the environment may occur. Keystone species are those whose populations have a high impact in the proper functioning of the ecosystem relative to their abundance, in their absence, many ecosystem may fail to exist. Examples are shark, small mammals like otters, hares and rodents, wolves, bears, humming birds, Elephant and so on. Some keystone species act as prey whereas other act as predator, thus maintaining prey-predator relationship and balance in the ecosystem. There are many methods which can be adopted for the wildlife conservation like management of wildlife habitat, establishment of wildlife sanctuaries, awareness campaigns, tree plantations, maintenance of pollutions and plastic free environment, restoration of endangered species populations by captive breeding programs, implementation of strong plans and policies, wildlife monitoring programs, etc. There are several organizations in many countries of the world devoted for conservation like World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Royal Society for the protection of Birds (RSPB), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Conservation International (CI), Birdlife International, Zoological Society of London (ZSL), Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), etc. They promote environmental education and conservation of wild populations and habitats.
Ultimately, from individual side, involvement in conservation work can be done by looking into ways to make own life more sustainable, talking with family, friends, relatives and neighbors about conservation, saying no to plastics and yes to reduce, reuse and recycle, using less vehicles and promoting use of cycle, switching to alternative and renewable energy resources, supporting the local government initiatives that protect wildlife habitat and decrease threat to biodiversity, volunteering at organizations that focuses on conservation or restoration of habitat and using eco-friendly products.