MARCH 30, 2006
An
old cowboy song says it all: "Give me land, lots of land, underneath the western sky,
don't fence me in." No one likes to be either literally or figuratively fenced in, but fences are going up all over the world to divide people. One of the unintended consequences of fencing is that animals also lose their corridors of travel overnight.
On the macro scale look at these facts:
- India is building an 1800 mile fence along the Pakistani border.
- Kuwait has built 250 miles of fencing along the Iraqi border.
- Zambia is building a 620 mile fence along the Angola border.
- United States is erecting a 60 mile fence between California and Northern Mexico.
These are perhaps the most notable that are under the radar screen, while the Israeli - Palestinian border fence is the most visible and notorious today. All being erected for security purposes, I presume.
Irrespective of the human rights issues, political statements etc., life for millions of animals, both human and nonhuman types is being disrupted by our fencing systems.
I do not like fences, though out of necessity we had to install a fence around our organic vegetable garden, and subsequently our house, to keep in our golden retriever and to keep the deer out. However, the bobcats, coyotes, and winged creatures still manage to penetrate our chain link fence.
The environment was created differently than the human family wishes. Boundaries were natural - ravines, mountains, rivers, lakes, oceans and continents. Life evolved comfortably in a particular eco region and movement within that defined space was essential to the well being of the inhabitant. Our fences have changed all that and we are now starting to re-think wild life corridors.
If a fence is necessary then create opportunity for those who need to get through to be able to do so. If we all could co-habitate as the garden was originally designed to accommodate fences would be a thing of the past.
--Peter