Sauron in real life
It is now more than two years that we have been in charge of the Sigur Nature Trust. The experience was at first exciting: to be in the middle of elephants and wildlife is something irreplaceable. But then I started to understand what is going on in the Sigur Region and this silenced me for some time. I was busy as well, but ultimately traumatized because I have lost hope that we can improve conservation of species.
Everyone has seen or read “The Lord of the Rings”. Sauron could revive because the corruption of men. To end evil seemed impossible because every time anyone got Sauron’s ring, fell to his power. The task to destroy Sauron was impossible. But the fairy tale happy development was due to a lucky accident: the addition of two “greeds”, that of Frodo and that of Gollum, lead to the destruction of the ring.
I know a lot of good people in the Sigur Region among all segments of the population. But these people don’t matter. The general consensus by those who matter, is to make money. Everyone, in all administrations use the law to this purpose. Patrolling and enforcement are non-existent, unless useful to get bribes or when absolutely required by circumstances. This is not due to a lack of training, lack of funds or poverty. What you observe is an insane waste of resources, erosion of ecological processes by the enrichment of a few at the expense of the others.
The addition of “greeds” cannot logically nurture a happy ending in reality. The elephants are going down again with poaching and us with them: look at the conditions of the planet. We are not in a fairy tale and the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat are poisons. How to stop a mindless search for gold when the world itself is all rust?
If more people don’t get involved in the state of the world, eventually the world next door, we will have difficult awakenings. The Baghavad Gita said something like: the most astonishing about men is that they live their lives as if they were eternal. A modern version could be: the most astonishing about men is that they live their lives as if their impact on the world never mattered. This is a quasi-total denial of Karma particularly by people in power. And I am afraid we will have to split humanity in two: those who fight without hope and those who live happy in hell.
Jean-Philippe Puyravaud