The Hindu Business Line : A futile effort?

This is with reference to the article `Is saving threatened species futile?' (Business Line, August 10), which throws the poser: Is it futile to artificially contrive to save a species facing extinction? Now this might sound like openly sanctioning the wanton destruction of wildlife in the name of progress and development. The pertinent question here is whether we ordinary mortals can really understand the workings of nature?

How are we to know, for instance, the exact `moment of extinction' for a particular species, especially when we ourselves live only for a period of 70 to 75 years as opposed to Nature's time-line spanning centuries?

It seems even more preposterous to envisage hastening the premature end of a species by destroying its habitat.

From this, it seems that man and not Nature chooses `the moment of extinction' of scores of species with his ingenious ability to pollute, destroy and plunder.

Is it fair to blame nature when a river in spate destroys house and property? Or should we question the wisdom of the authorities who blocked the course of that river, in the first place, by wanton reclamation and construction?

M. S. Suresh

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A futile effort?