Globalization SSA: Sub-Sahara Africa Madagascar Blog 2

I believe we do have a moral obligation to take action to protect our planet, because human activities have led to environmental degradation on a vast majority of areas on our planet, and they have done plenty of harms to not only our environment, but also our people’s health and well-being and, even worse, the survival of some cultures. According to the article The Inuit Right to Culture Based on Ice and Snow, written by an Inuit activist Sheila Watt-Cloutier, global warming has a direct negative impact on their daily life. As Inuits, they inhabit in the Arctic regions; ice and snow represent transportation, mobility and life for them. For generations, they’ve been closely observing the environment, and accurately predict if the weather would allow them to travel safely by ice and hunt for their food. However, due to the recent global warming phenomenon, their ability of accurately predicting weather has been disturbed. The reduction of sea ice has made their transportation vehicle becoming increasingly limited and unreliable. People’s life are endangered, drowning has happened to many Inuits when they are crossing seas that they thought they would cross through. Furthermore, many marine species in Arctic are facing extinction, including polar bears, ice-living seals, walrus and some marine birds. While typical Inuits diet consists these animals, Inuits population is decreasing with the declining of these animal species. Therefore, what environmental degradation has done is way beyond the damage to environment, it has imperiled human’s well-being, especially those of children’s; what’s worse, it may even cause the disappearing of many valuable and exotic cultures such as the Inuit culture. All these disastrous consequences are mostly, if not solely, results of human activities. To develop economies, governments are taking short-term view that is favored by many businesses, which results in severe environmental destruction. Humans took the advantage of the environment to serve our own benefits and greed, now that the environment has helped us to achieve our desired development, and I do feel we have a moral obligation to give what we have taken, to take action and protect the future of a planet in peril.

(Traditional Inuits)

One of the most prominent consequences of environmental degradation is the decrease in cultural and biological richness in many regions, such as Madagascar. According to wildmadagascar.org, this country’s major environmental problems include deforestation and habitat destruction; agricultural fires; erosion and soil degradation; overexploitation of living resources including hunting and over-collection of species from the wild and introduction of alien species. Among them all, soil erosion is the greatest concern, this came from an insightful observation—due to soil erosion, rivers looked like they were running blood red and staining the surrounding Indian Ocean, astronauts have remarked that it looked like Madagascar is bleeding to death.

(Betsiboka River of Madagascar, photo taken by NASA )

According to my research, water.org is not involved in Madagascar, however, other environmental groups, including Wildlife Conservation Society and World Wildlife Fund are working in Madagascar, in an effort to prevent further environmental degradation and preserve the island’s unique ecosystems and biodiversity. Specifically, Wildlife Conservation Society is striving to ensure the conservation of the island’s unique floral and faunal diversity, while World Wildlife Fund is mainly focusing on preventing Madagascar’s further deforestation.