Damage to nature and its unrelenting response

Boy, these days; they have become weeks and we hope will not add more months to the period of crisis due to the pandemic, they must be teaching us something. We must ensure that this is the case.

How sapiens are we if we cannot see beyond our present and ignore the past?

Cover image: Hieronymus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights

Our species is about 300,000 years old on Earth, where life emerged approximately 3,500,000,000 years ago, which attributes a permanence of less than 0.001% in relation to the existence of life in general on the planet.

Thanks to our brain, the largest in proportion to the body size of any species that has emerged to date, we have practically taken possession of 100% of the globe and irresponsibly disposed of all the resources, which translates into unsustainable development, but of which in a way we boast, we have even given it a name: the Anthropocene – the age of man.

Every year we exceed the use of the resources that the planet is estimated to produce naturally during the 365 days, depleting them long before December 31. Furthermore, we currently use the equivalent of one Earth and ¾, which is like having eaten food for the whole week on Thursday and the only way to explain that we survive until next Monday is by using the reserves in the pantry. But at that rate the entire reserve will be used and there will be no more to draw from.

In 2019 the overshoot date reached the end of July and it should come as no surprise, because since 1973 we are indebted to our round blue and green lender. This year the date could be moved even further, hopefully not.

But how does each country do it in terms of consume?

Note that if everyone lived as they do in Peru (on average), the overshoot would occur on September 23, nothing to be really proud of. Perhaps it is worth analyzing what makes Ecuador extend resources until December 14 and Qatar or Luxembourg end the planet before Carnival.

The consequence is that we literally destroy ecosystems and undermine reserves, greed drives us deeper and deeper in search of more resources, when in reality we have what we need but simply waste it.

And in the process we are opening the Pandora’s Box, the thing is that we only see a small part of the evils that we are releasing (as in the painting by Bosch).

What we currently consider as nature’s warnings are major destructive events like cyclones and floods or droughts and fires, to name a few. But this time the warning is not visible, although very tangible.

However, this pandemic, which in a matter of 100 days has already managed to alter the way of life of all of us, is not the first warning of this type that nature has given us in relation to how we are doing things since our self-established altar, on top of all other things.

It just happens that our big brain doesn’t make good use of the memory function. That our leaders are carried away by capitalist interests and that our citizens are not in a position to discern between individual and collective good, in part because of the immediate pressures resulting from social inequalities, which force economic activities that save the day, but not existence.

Climate change or climate disruption is what is on everyone’s lips since let’s say the Paris convention in 2015, and for the most informed let’s say since the 70s (which is a lot). And we could infer that this situation is the one that is having the most media coverage and therefore is at a greater degree within the general knowledge of the people.

Plastic pollution is another topic in vogue, to say the least, and thank goodness it is.

But issues such as habitat loss, extinction, and species trafficking are somewhat more ethereal. However, things like these are what cause crises like the one we currently face, only we don’t see the connections. Connoisseurs call it the ecology of disease.

We are not experts on the subject, far from it and that is why we turn to our allies at Arbio, who know how to explain it, and this is their position on the matter: Our immune system needs healthy forests.

While, intrinsically, we also know that there is a balance to be found in things and that is why we have worked on projects apparently very different from our main economic activity. As a result, we show you something that also describes us as a company and as conscious citizens.

Now, we leave the following reflection: traveling and really getting to know things gives you a vision of the world that is not learned in any other way.

This crisis affects us all directly or indirectly, the tourism sector will be strongly contracted, but tourism is resilient, it is sustainable if it is managed well, and we are sure that there will be a rebirth, but we have to make sure that travelers do it with empathy for destiny, for nature and for the people who live from it, that finally is all of us.

This situation is momentary and we must do everything within our reach so that it does not become the new reality. We will return as soon as we can operate 100%, but in the meantime we leave all this information to try to reach more people with the message.

We will be very happy to receive comments or opinions, to receive new information that you want to share with us, to know that there are many of us who are facing the situation, from where we have to do it and with all the responsibility of the case.