The reason I chose this photograph is at the bottom of the post. My day usually begins around 5am, those urgent email replies as well as trying to clear the backlog. It was no surprise to hear music blaring in the distance, around 4am, probably a wedding celebration, they go on for days here. The volume of the music here in a protected area, well, I’ve written about this before. Noise pollution, it’s not just that it happens, it’s the disappointment that so few people care about it. In a jungle area yesterday, big cat habitat, as I was checking for leopard sign in a place where I should only hear birds or perhaps the alarm calls of deer and monkeys, I could hear music blaring from two sides, the volume must have been so high for me to hear it where it was. It was a bit depressing. I immersed myself in my work, later finding some leopard scat cheered me up.
I’ll be back in that area in a couple of hours. I’m hoping it will be peaceful, it’s not only easier to work, it’s the way the jungle should be. Protected areas aren’t here for our entertainment they are here because they are crucial to the very air we breathe and the water we drink, our health, the health of all living things. I know for a very fact that tigers and leopards hate unnecessary noise, I spend a lot of time on this, trying to understand what can work for these incredible wild animals as we strive for coexistence.
Something else I’m hoping for today is that the Biden inauguration signals the start of deeply necessary repairing of environmental policy in a country which whether the rest of us like or not, has a massive global impact. The Trump administration has been a f