Editorial July 2008
20 years of Cactus and Adventures
Dear Readers,
The more ecology becomes fashionable, the less
citizens of the Earth and their governments seem to understand it. Have
we definitively lost contact with nature?
Once again, this year, holiday-makers will complain
in an exaggerated fashion about the invasion of beaches by jellyfish, a
normal phenomenon when we know that we are killing their last predators
by excessive and uncontrolled fishing: goodbye tuna, mackerel,
swordfish, tortoise, hello jellyfish!
Last year, on Spanish television, a report on fox
hunting ended with a real massacre. The irony of programming is
that in the same television news was a complaint about the
proliferation of 500 million common voles (Microtus arvalis) in the
Province of Castilla and Leon. Then, the Government took the decision
to dedicate 24 million Euros to get rid of them: they did nothing
better than to poison them! As a result, the predators, in addition to
the fox disappeared: birds of prey, weasels were also poisoned as well
as different species of innocent herbivorous animals... In 2008, the
vole is still alive with only one stupid enemy...
This year, in Andalusia, in Motril, a whole
community became traumatized because “hundreds” of snakes
invaded the roofs of their houses. Fire brigades had to poison the
unfortunate reptiles by fumigation. In fact, it is only a single female
of Horseshoe Whip Snake (Hemorrhois hippocrepis, not poisonous)
and a dozen youngsters, settled here to feed upon the rodents
living in the roof of their thankless and uneducated neighbours! I am
quite sure that all the rats of the district are going to come and
congratulate these so intelligent neighbours.
So many flies will enter our homes this summer
making us eventually regret having killed all the spiders of the house,
“No more unsightly webs on ceilings”, you may say to
yourself, but I say that the small jumping spiders do not even make
one... Then, why kill them if they are useful?
Man, the greatest predator of all, finds a solution
for any problem through destruction. Make your choice: concrete or
desert? Soon, we shall have both! This ignorance is the negation of the
intelligence.
We will have lost our humanity when there will be no
more animals, no plants : only that which was once named humanity.
Joël Lodé, member IOS
