Invicta Vlogs
Endangered
This week’s theme is Endangered, so I would like to take this opportunity to share my thoughts on how we can make a difference to animals at risk.
Recently in a mock interview, I was discussing whether humans or animals are more important and why. After some input from Dr Millgate as devil’s advocate, I concluded that humans are more important, as we must look after our own species, but it is our responsibility to fix the problems animals face that we have created. These include poachers, deforestation, and excess CO2 emissions. Although these are some massive issues, there are a lot of personal changes we can make ourselves and large changes we can contribute to! We have all been told to recycle or donate to charity, but I hope to outline some less talked about actions we could all take.
One of my favourite jumpers comes from a clothing and accessories company called Big Wild Thought. Each item features an animal (an orca, bee, or rhino, for example) and 10% of every sale goes to a charity for that animal! Buying from companies like these is particularly easy, as it can just be integrated into how you usually buy clothes.
To help the environment in general, going against fast fashion is another easy idea. Instead of buying new, cheap clothes every time a new trend starts, we should buy good quality clothes that will last longer, wasting fewer materials and saving money in the long term. Learning to mend and up-cycle clothes is an old trend that should make a comeback! As well as reducing the damaging practices of over-farming and deforestation, we can increase the demand for longer lasting products.
One of the larger, more difficult to solve issues is poaching, but there is a simple action we can all take. WWF’s online ‘Action Center’ has many pledges to sign, including one to Stop Wildlife Crime. Raising awareness to governments is one of the best ways to contribute to a large change.
However, a guaranteed way to show the government what you think is by voting! Perhaps a tenuous link, but with the general election coming up soon, I thought this would be the perfect time to emphasise the importance of voting. A common reason not to vote is knowing your favourite will not win. However, if the winning party can see that more people are voting for your favourite party, they are likely to alter their policies to appeal to supporters of your party, so winning is not everything. Any vote sends a message, so if you want change, vote for it!
The philosophical theory of Deontology essentially means thinking ‘if everyone did a particular action, would the result be good or bad?’. If the result is positive, do this action yourself, if negative, do not do it. For example, if everyone thought ‘there is no point in signing this pledge because one vote will not change anything’, then that pledge would never make a difference. However, if everyone decided to change their lifestyle even slightly, there would be a huge difference for endangered animals, and for our planet.
Erin Cocker
Year 13 - Senior Prefect
