How to save our wildlife, improve human nature, and save the world

As a worker in the industry of wildlife preservation, I feel there are few things that highlight the paradox of human nature as clearly as our capacity to destroy our own environment. And If we are going to change what seems inevitable and save the world.

We create foundations and organizations to raise money and public awareness of various desperate situations around the world, from the loss of critical habitat, to the loss of endangered species themselves. But its not always the extreme examples that need our attention.

I would suggest that some of those resources would be better used locally. To manage the wildlife and habitat we have in the big city suburbs. If we don't have the presence of mind to secure the necessary habitat and species population now, then we will only be fighting a much harder battle in the future, when those animals are on the edge of extinction.

Australians are unaware of how lucky we are to have so much wildlife still in our cities. So many parts of the world just don't have any wild animals left at all. Migrants to Australia are often shocked when they run into some of our native wildlife.

I was once at a cafe on the side of the road at the famous Australian beach, Bondi, in the middle of suburban Sydney, when 4 Sulpher-Crested Cockatoos landed in a small tree next to us. They were so close we could almost touch them. The two people from Brazil beside us were so thrilled, they couldn't believe it. To have birds that large and beautiful just flying around naturally was amazing to them. It was then that I realized how much I took our native wildlife for granted.

I think that a lot of the resources generated by these organizations disappears toward the obvious and well known causes like African or Asian Elephants, "Big Cats", "Old Growth or Rain Forests", but the, "not yet endangered", native animals that we have in suburbia all around us get over looked.

Educating people about our native wildlife is a very important part of that managerial process. A friend who is rescue coordinator for an Australian wildlife organization told me that she is constantly reminded that the general population is interested in our wildlife but really doesn't know much about it.

We cut down the old tree in our back yard that provides a nest to native parrots and mammals, we spray insecticide on our garden killing reptiles that feed on those insects. And we plant new, landscaped, modern gardens, effectively reducing the amount of native habitat for our native wildlife.

How are we going to save the world if we can't even look after our "own backyard", immediate environment and the flora and fauna in it.

I don't know the answer to that question but we are running out of time..... and habitat, in the world, in order to save the world.