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Straits Times Forum Page, 12 Jan 05 Upset balance of nature - and mankind suffers THE report, 'Destroyed mangroves could have saved lives' (ST, Jan 8), has brought to the forefront what has been obscured for a long time. The media can do a lot of good by disseminating such information to promote awareness of keeping the natural balance in nature, to offset or mitigate natural calamities beyond our control. In the report, chief scientist Jeff McNeely, of the Swiss-based World Conservation Union, said mangroves offered protection against things like tsunamis. He added that people have started to occupy part of the landscape they should not have occupied. Mr Doug Masson, senior researcher at Southampton University's Oceanography Centre, was quoted as saying there was a big dampening effect when a coral reef broke up a tsunami, causing it to travel onwards as a broken wave and making it less deadly. Mangroves also provide a form of natural bulwark against tsunamis by acting as shock absorbers to decrease their impact. Either way, these natural barriers temper the destructive force of tsunamis. This paramount factor of balance, in the context of natural assistance, occurs everywhere in nature. The human body, for example, depends a lot on bacterial interference. Antibiotics can upset this balance by knocking out good intestinal microbes along with the bad. This leaves the next invader with no symbiotic bacteria to block its path, and could result in a worse infection than the one the antibiotics were intended to cure. Man must therefore be exceedingly careful in assessing the threshold of the balance, as any miscalculation can produce disastrous results. Nature is neither for nor against the species per se it has produced. It does, however, keep on adapting its work over time. Viruses, for example, over millions of years of being honed by nature, has evolved into a perfect predator. Nature has also provided bulwarks that we destroy at our own peril. It is essential that we not do upset the balance and invite calamity. Dudley Au Warning system? Look no further than animals 'THE simplest solutions in life are often things in front of us,' goes an old saying. Yet man has constantly been blinded by the pride and arrogance of his own intellectual capacity. Like a thief in the night, the Boxing Day tsunami crept upon many unsuspecting people. Thousands were killed, homes and buildings were decimated, and whole islands annihilated. Furious as they may have seemed, the tsunamis that rocked Asia were not entirely merciless. Prior to the submarine earthquake, nature had displayed precursory signs of impending destruction. Up to three days before the earthquake, large harvests of fish were reported by fishermen. Unusual species of fish were observed by recreational divers off the coast of Phuket, Penang and Kedah. I myself have personally experienced the 'calm before the storm' during my postgraduate research days at Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Days before cyclone Tessi developed, the sea behaved normally . However, a strange calmness came over the sea the night before. The water was still and noisy insects grew silent. On April 2, 2000, while on a morning research dive, I discovered the reef bed devoid of fish activity. It was like a marine desert. We aborted the dive and decided to try again in the afternoon. Shortly after returning to the boat, mainland authorities radioed for immediate evacuation of the island as the cyclone was only two hours behind us. The ability of animals to sense impending natural disasters has been widely researched and documented. Chinese researchers have claimed accurate detection of earthquakes based on animal behaviour as early as 1974. Hibernating snakes appeared from their holes, hyperactivity intensified in horses, cows and dogs, fish swam aimlessly and birds left their normal habitats. Deep cold-water species of fish have been caught by Japanese fishermen in shallow warm waters prior to earthquakes in the Sea of Japan. Fish possess otoliths, also known as ear bones, which are extremely sensitive to vibrations in the water. The ability of dogs to hear microfractures of rocks milliseconds before a quake has been similarly documented. Hence, it is unusual that humans, being the most physiologically advanced species in the animal kingdom, do not possess the ability to sense impending natural disasters. The recent tragedy has demonstrated the victory of simplicity over complexity. Perhaps it is time to go back to the drawing board and start from basics. In our quest to develop tsunami warning systems, let us be reminded of how simple basics preserved most of the animal kingdom that day. Perhaps the sensory responses of animals should be studied to enable the development of instruments of similar responsiveness for future environmental precursory changes. Oon Sheng Lung links Related articles on Tsunami and the environment |
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