New Year message

[Guest guest]

*Dear colleagues,*

* 2006 has been quite a remarkable year at

AAPN. A year that has possibly given rise to the most debates in the history

of the list. As a new year message, I offer the attached message by author

and naturalist Gerald Durrell that is encapsulated at the Durrell Wildlife

Conservation Trust in UK. It is as relevant today as it was when it was

written almost twenty years ago. May the New Year bring good cheer to all.*

* Best wishes and kind regards,*

**

*

Ghosh*

 

 

*To Whom it may Concern*

 

*Many of us, though not all in this year of 1988, recognise the following

things:*

 

*1. All political and religious differences that at present slow down,

entangle and strangle progress in the world will have to be solved in a

civilised manner.*

 

*2. All other life forms have as much right to exist as we have and that

indeed without the bulk of them we would perish*.

 

*3. Overpopulation is a menace that must be addressed by all countries; if

allowed to continue it is a Gadarene syndrome which will cause nothing but

our doom*.

 

*4. Ecosystems are intricate and vulnerable; once misused, disfigured or

greedily exploited they vanish to our detriment. Used wisely they provide

boundless treasure. Used unwisely they create misery, starvation and death

to the human race and to a myriad other lifeforms*.

 

*5. It is stupid to destroy things such as rainforests before we know how

they function and what is in them, especially because in these great webs of

life may be embedded secrets of incalculable value to the human race*.

 

*6. The world is to us what the Garden of Eden was supposed to be to Adam

and Eve. Adam and Eve were banished, but we are banishing ourselves from our

Eden. The difference is that Adam and Eve had somewhere else to go. We have

nowhere else to go.*

 

*We hope that by the time you read this you will have at least partially

curtailed our reckless greed and stupidity. If we have not, at least some of

us have tried...*

 

*All we can say is learn from what we have achieved, but above all learn

from our mistakes, do not go on endlessly like a squirrel in a wheel

committing the same errors hour by hour day by day year after year century

after century as we have done up to now. *

 

*We hope that there will be fireflies and glow-worms at night to guide you

and butterflies in hedges and forests to greet you. *

 

*We hope that your dawns will have an orchestra of bird song and that the

sound of their wings and the opalescence of their colouring will dazzle you.

*

 

*We hope that there will still be the extraordinary varieties of creatures

sharing the land of the planet with you to enchant you and enrich your lives

as they have done for us*

 

*We hope that you will be grateful for having been born into such a magical

world.*

 

*Gerald Durrell *