Saving Malaysian Wildlife from Extinction...

Technorati tags: Nature, Nature, Wildlife Conservation, Malaysia, Public Service Announcement

Mention the words wildlife and endangered, the first thing that comes to Walski's mind is that our Malaysian party culture is being threatened by over-zealous conservatives who have nothing better to do than to control the lives of others.

But another kind of wildlife is being threatened with much greater ferocity. The kind of wildlife that nature has bestowed upon us, and the kind that we need to preserve. After all, this kind of wildlife forms an important part of the ecosystem that keeps planet Earth ticking. Consider the following facts:

• 14% of Malaysia’s mammals are listed by The World Conservation Union (IUCN) as endangered
• Of 30 species of turtle ever discovered, only 7 are left
• The Bornean species of orangutan is highly endangered, and the Sumatran species is critically endangered, according to the IUCN Red List of mammals, and both are listed on Appendix I of CITES.

And while the nocturnal urban wildlife threat can be overcome with making sure you vote in the kind of government you want, the threat facing natural wildlife in Malaysia actually comes from us human beings ourselves. Particularly, from our economic activities, that have taken precedence over nature. Landslides and flooding are only two of the symptoms we frequently hear about - vanishing wildlife is another.

Conservation of wildlife actually means more to you than you realize...

Malaysia Travel Guide has initiated a blog-based campaign to help raise awareness about our fast disappearing wildlife, as part of their effort to promote responsible tourism.

If you feel as strongly about the threats facing our rich biodiversity, and natural spaces as Walski does, then you should lend a helping hand, too.
(what you can do, and more, in the full post)

Primarily, the campaign intends to use the power and reach of blogging to increase awareness about the threats facing Malaysian wildlife. There are a few things you can do, the details of which you can find at the Malaysia Wildlife Conservation Awareness Campaign web page, hosted by the Malaysia Travel Guide. Go take a look and see if you can help out.

The campaign involves blogging something about wildlife, in your own style and expressing your own thoughts, on January 1st, 2008. Before then, help promote the campaign, just like what Walski is doing here. Another way you can help is by displaying the campaign banner, like the one you see on the left sidebar of this blog. Walski decided that one should go at the top of the page, too, but that's just Walski.

If you don't own a blog, tell your friends who do (or even those who don't) about this campaign. The important thing here is to get more people aware about the risks facing our legacy of nature. And talking about it is one way to raise that awareness. Walski, for one, wouldn't want to witness the day when the only orangutans left are the ones found in books or websites, images of a species extinct.

Our little blueish green planet, the third rock from the Sun, is really a self-regulating ecosystem, consisting of countless species of life, human life being only one of them. Wreck that ecosystem, and we may just be driving ourselves to extinction.

Well, 'nuff said. Now go do your part - it's as much your home as it is Walski's... and a world without wildlife is a world heading down the gruesome downward spiral, towards inevitable extinction.