A Letter of Hope to Wildlife

Dear Wildlife:

Nine years have passed since we began to commemorate this day and I find it a little sad to think that there are only nine, considering your millionaire existence on this planet; our planet.

I would like to begin by saying that the origin of this celebration does not occur solely because of celebrating your intrinsic value - as if that were not sufficient moral consideration - and rather, it is caused by a problem, which like many others, has fostered my species: your threat, trafficking and extinction.

Precisely on March 3, 1973 (that is, a day like today but 49 years ago), the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) was approved, whose purpose is to protect wildlife that is involved in marketing processes. We could go deeper into why there are even wild species that we want to commercialize, however, in a desire that this letter will allow us to value you and always protect you, I have decided not to investigate our human need to dominate everything in nature, and to focus on the reasons why you are indispensable.

CITES, like other treaties and regulatory bodies to which we also owe this anniversary, does a fantastic job. In Mexico, we have agencies and secretariats that also seek your protection and conservation. And even though it hurts me to know that sometimes we have different interests and conservation objectives, it gives me pleasure to think that, day in and day out, they continue to protect you, regardless of the barbarism that sometimes involves living on this anthropocentric planet.

On the other hand, we have equally fantastic actors who tend to play a very important role in your care. We at Toroto, as well as our community, are included in this group. Through this letter, and on behalf of Toroto, I express the personal convictions that lead me to protect you:

First and foremost, without hesitation, I am motivated by your living condition, that is, your intrinsic value, not instrumental, not utilitarian: “value that an object possesses regardless of the valuations of those who value it” as John O'Neill (1993) would say in Human Well-Being and the Natural World. I don't think there's a greater reason for your protection than the simple fact that you exist. However, our coexistence leads me to recognize the very close bond we have, so I will delve into the following additional reasons:

On the one hand, we have ecosystem services (SE). All the more reason for your protection, since the greater the diversity of wildlife there is, the greater the benefits we enjoy. This relationship is directly proportional, but not exactly linear, since we have concepts such as additionality, which shows us that a specific conservation action to improve ecosystem services brings us more benefits than the action itself does.

Some SEs are very obvious and well-known, such as those for support, supply and regulation. These provide us with carbon capture and storage, water and air purification, nutritious food, temperature regulation, raw materials, energy, disease control and much more. However, there are also others, perhaps not so well known, but which have sustained the immaterial development of our civilization; these are cultural services. Wild flora and fauna have been an inspiration -to a greater or lesser extent- for each of the societies that inhabit the planet, being both the origin and the end of the different existing worldviews: from those whose beliefs and traditions revolve around animism and the exaltation of nature as a creative mother and being omnipotent, to those that put you in the last link of relevance, very much in the style of the ideology that reigned in the Middle Ages, even if it seems that many times, we still live there.

I couldn't say that I agree with any of the above, but I have definitely experienced firsthand the spiritual and intellectual enrichment you provide me. Also, although it might sound frivolous, I think it's very important to mention your crucial participation in our aesthetic experience. You have definitely been -and are- inspiration for an endless number of artistic manifestations, so I decided to close this section by sharing a small excerpt from one of my favorites (which I think sums up the admiration you provoke in me):

Tyger Tyger, Burning Bright,

In the forests of the night;

What immortal hand or eye,

Could you frame your fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.

Burnt the Fire of Thine Eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

(William Blake, 1794)

Tiger! , Tiger! , fiery glow

In the woods of the night,

What immortal hand, what eye?

Did it forge your atrocious symmetry?

In what abysses, in what heavens?

Did the fire in your eyes burn?

On what wings did he dare to rise?

What hand did the fire dare to hold?

Translation by Davino Sena. Poems. Eutomy, 1 (22) ,362.

Finally, and together with the direct relationship between ecosystem services and biodiversity, this last concept reminds us (even though we have historically striven to separate ourselves from you) that we are part of nature; it reminds us that ecosystems are made up of complex networks of interaction, where no agent is left over. It shows us that diversity of forms, functions and strategies are necessary to build resilience. It also shows us, through its parameters and indices, that sometimes less is more; that the quantitative and the qualitative are only approaches that complement each other and do not contradict each other.

Biodiversity gives us great lessons for relating to each other, to others and to the other organisms with which we coexist. It teaches us about balances and imbalances, but above all, it teaches us that the path to combat the environmental and climate crisis begins with knowing you, protecting you and - even if there is no end as such - this last stage eternally under construction occurs when we blur the nature/society barriers that we have imposed, and we learn to manage ourselves sustainably.

With my best wishes, I say goodbye hoping that all the actions we take will be based on your protection and permanence on the planet, because if we ensure the above, we will also ensure ours and that of those who come.

Thank you, Wildlife, for being and giving us life!

- Photographs provided by the project “Diagnosis of wild meat consumption and the establishment of management units for wildlife conservation (UMA)” carried out by ECOBIOSFERA EL TRIUNFO, S.C., with the support of ENDESU, A.C. and WWF.