Choosing to learn about the habits and behaviors of indigenous fauna is to begin to change the mentality and the colonizing thought structure for a more holistic culture and mentality, rather than one of conquest and coexistence. A change of mentality that can greatly help a more sustainable human development and much more sustainable than what we are used to. Today we have, as a civilization, a culture that believes that the environment must be conquered, subjugated, put at the service of human beings and we have disdained the ancient forms of coexistence with nature practiced by ancient pre-Columbian civilizations, which developed important and complex human societies.
Today we see aggressive or at least careless behaviour towards native fauna. We mishandle our pets, which are invasive predators that greatly affect native animals; we are excessively curious when a reptile, mammal or pelagic bird appears on the beaches. If we are visited by weasels, otters or lizards, we consult specialists on ways to eliminate them as if they were pests; we naturalize and accept the trafficking and sale of wild specimens as if they were pets.
All these situations must be reversed, and to begin to reverse them we must know more and more about our animal neighbors of the indigenous fauna. This is the first step.
Author: Augusto Giussi
