Down to Earth: Conservation exhibition 15 – 26 July 2019

“I am an African. I owe my being to the hills and the valleys, the mountains and the glades, the rivers, the deserts, the trees, the flowers, the seas and the ever-changing seasons that define the face of our native land.” Thabo Mbeki

Thabo Mbeki epitomises what it means to be African, and as Africans, we must endeavour to protect the land on which we live. This is the main aim of Conservation Biology, which is a science that includes natural and social sciences, with an aim to protect life on Earth from human impacts. However, in many instances, conservation decisions must be made before all the facts are known. Nevertheless, conservation biologists use what information is available and apply scientific principles to make tough decisions. Despite this, one of the greatest hindrances to conservation is lack of understanding by the general public. To try and address this, the ZEN 364 Conservation Ecology students generate individual multi-media projects concerning a conservation topic about which they are passionate as a way to increase awareness. This year, many of those projects were displayed in the Merensky 2 Library. The main aim of the exhibition was to spread knowledge and awareness of key conservation issues so that people could make informed choices in their daily lives about what is best for the planet and ultimately the human race.

There are many threats to biodiversity including habitat destruction, landscape change and fragmentation, overexploitation, invasive species, pollution, climate change, and extinction. Each of these threats is rooted in the growing human population and its demand for more natural resources. In fact, humans use, co-opt or destroy half of all the food available to animals with the result that there are fewer and fewer animals as the human population increases. Despite this knowledge people still ask why biodiversity should be conserved. The answer is quite simple, without the ecosystem services provided by biodiversity such as food, medicine, pollination, oxygen and the atmosphere, the water cycle and wetlands that protect against floods, we wouldn’t be able to survive on this planet. Moreover, we have a moral obligation to protect biodiversity as we are the cause of this destruction. Remember, there is no planet B.

So, what can we do about it? International organisations such as the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) have gone to great lengths to categorise species according to their risk of extinction. But is it up to governments alone? Many people think that individuals can’t make a difference. This is far from true. Recycling one bottle means one less that will pollute the environment. Cycling to university means one less car emitting greenhouse gases. Reusing a coffee cup instead of getting a new paper one each time you buy coffee reduces pressure on the Earth’s already limited resources. Ultimately, one informed person can educate multitudes. It was the hope of the Conservation Ecology class to reach out and make a difference by raising awareness across the university by exhibiting their conservation projects. The spekboom, available free of charge to visitors at the exhibition, is an excellent example of what individuals can do to make an impact. The spekboom is a carbon sink, which means that it removes a large amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. In fact, it pulls in much more carbon dioxide than other plants of the same size. We hope you took one, care for it, help it to grow, and thus help make a difference. Raising awareness of what we can do to save the planet and rectify our mistakes was the main aim of the exhibition put together by the ZEN 364 Conservation Ecology students that ran 15-26 July in the library. As Dr Seuss said, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.”

View the photographs: https://tinyurl.com/y2a3w976