The word Anthropocene has been described as the ‘great acceleration caused by humans‘ originating from the words ‘anthropo’ which in Greek translates to human, and ‘cene’ translates to new. In this new era, Earth has undeniably undergone a quickening of degradation with the irreparable extinction of species. This devastating loss of biodiversity has greatly impacted the integrity and symbiosis of the natural environment, most obviously negatively impacting the quality of life for large mammals including humans and elephants. Unfettered capitalism has wreaked havoc on what has naturally evolved through co-existence for a millennia. Elephants are more frequently suffering fates such as death by heat stroke, viruses, parasites, malnutrition, soil and sperm impotency through fossil fueled, monopolized GMO agriculture and industrialized pollution. We are at an unprecedented moment on planet earth when elephants and humans together are struggling form the very same challenges!
Naturally elephants, unlike humans, are not trying to compete in a race for extractive consumption. Elephants, much like natural wildfires, build resiliency across the land — what elephants eat matters, just as what we eat matters! Elephants browse on up to 260 different plant species, 16-18hrs on average per day. This actually paves pathways for wildlife trails, pruning and thinning the forest just as wildfires would. By trampling, weeding out and composting excessive shrubs or trees, they create more water, soil and sunlight availability for trees to grow healthy: stronger, larger, older, sturdier and more resilient. These trees then have a larger capacity to store more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis in their biomass. Elephants are ecosystem engineers, they are The True Guardians of their native wild habitat providing protection for all species. An elephant’s dung seeds and fertilizes the forest floor, creating a carbon sink storage through soil sequestration, enriching the soil microbes, humus, insects, and small mammals along the way. This natural behavior is essential at some capacity in any natural wilderness, clearing the way for healthy regeneration of naturally occurring biodiversity.
Homo sapiens evolved on the scene around 200,000 years ago, and for 190,000 years we were hunter and gatherers, and over the past 11,000 years we have led a sedentary life thanks to agriculture. It is most evident that in this 11,000 years we have consumed more of the planet’s resources than in 190,000 of evolution. Even more apparent still is in the last 200 years of the Anthropocene we have wrecked things up nearly beyond repair. We must respect nature as our mother, the giver of this life, replenisher of the land and inclusive sustainer for all of her inhabitants.
Elephants are up against hard times in this changing climate: living in smaller ecological habitats and corridors, including their migration areas that are now fragmented and a fraction of what they used to be. Elephant populations are being decimated due to a variety of causes such as poaching, captivity for zoos and circuses, big game hunting, deforestation, environmental degradation, human-elephant conflict, economic development, and unnatural borders drafted for political and religious reasons. Wild elephants are crying out for adequate space to just be an elephant as nature intended to live in union with their matriarchal herd, inhabiting their ancient stomping grounds. Proboscidea, the larger elephant family, began their evolutionary journey in Northern Africa 60 million years ago, surviving basically the same way they are today, sustainably co-existing with all life, reminding one that elephants have never once caused an extinction event.
This Anthropocene is demanding humans make conscious lifestyle choices that are all inclusive, an International Obligation to live more simply, or as Leonardo DaVinci termed simple to be “the ultimate sophistication”. So why reinvent the wheel to heal this Anthropocene when this natural and magnificent healing source — elephants and old growth trees — are already here providing significant services including carbon capture and climactic stability. When we each foster an organic garden and re-wild degraded lands with all the qualities that wilderness naturally encompasses is the moment that elephants and humans will stop being economical and political refugees. An elephant’s vast seasonal migration requires safe all-inclusive wild-flora & fauna corridors, and so do humans.
Elephants are our living, breathing, walking, intelligent, sentient and altruistic ancestral brothers and sisters of earth; their framework and herd dynamism holds ancient symbolism of sustainable safe-guardians of nature. When we release our anthropocentrism or human centeredness and reorganize our framework to value our shared Sacred Earth, spiritually honoring Natural Law and the Rights of Nature, which has so graciously carried us through evolution all together for eons, will ensure our survivability together for eons more.