Reflective Essay on Endangered Species Conservation
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Added on  2023/01/23
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This reflective essay discusses the importance of conserving endangered species and personal initiatives taken to promote conservation. It also explores the implementation of a change management model for wildlife protection.
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Running head:REFLECTIVE ESSAY Reflective Essay Name of the Student Name of the University Author Note
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1REFLECTIVE ESSAY Before I start narrating my opinion about the endangered species and my initiative in conserving the endangered species, I would first like to highlight the basic information which helped me to enlighten my knowledge horizon about endangered species. According to The National Wildlife Federation of America (2019), an endangered species is an animal or plant that is considered at a risk of extinction. A species can be listed as endangered either at the state level or federal level or at the international level. Some of the species which are facing the risk of extinction as per the list of Animal Planet (2019) include African Wild Dog, Amur Leopard, Asian Elephant, Bengal Tiger, Black Rhino, Black Spider Money. Blue Whale, Fin Whale, Chimpanzee, Eastern Lowland Gorilla, Giant Pandas, Galapagos Penguin, Green Turtle, Indian Elephant, Pangolins, Sea Lions and so on. I found the list enlisted in the official website of Animal Planet about endangered species to be never ending. After scrolling through the exhaustive range of the endangered species, I started researching about why the conservation of endangered species is important. As per the Endangered Species Act, applicable on the federal level in America, conversation of the endangered species is important in order to maintain the bio-diversity of the earth and thus helping to sustain a healthy life. Active initiatives taken by the mankind can prove to be helpful behind the conservation of the wildlife species for are facing the threats of extinction. The following reflective essay will focus on my personal attempts in order to bring change in the day-to-day practice for promoting conversation of the endangered species by the effective implementation of the change management model. Thorough reading about the endangered species helped to open my eyes about the importance of the conversation of the endangered species and how it can be done by taking simple personal initiatives. I am not an environmentalist, but I respect all the creatures created by god in this land of earth. My knowledge about evolution helped me to understand that as we the humans grow, we tend to expand on a large scale and thus occupying the major
2REFLECTIVE ESSAY portion of the earth. The activities of this ever expanding species (humans) like increase use of the mobile phones or establishment of the mobile phone towers, use of plastics, deforestation for the use of teak and timber or for building buildings create an imbalance in the equilibrium of the bio-diversity and thus increasing the risk of species extinction. Once the species have extinct, they are gone forever and there is not looking back. Losing even a single species can have a deleterious effect on the natural ecosystem, because the overall effect of extinction will be felt throughout the food chain. From giving cures to the fatal diseases to preserving the natural ecosystems and for improving overall quality of life of the humans, the benefits of preserving threatened and endangered species and invaluable (The National Wildlife Federation of America, 2019). Sparrows are commonplace bird but lately I have noticed that the numbers of sparrows are being reduced. The study conducted by Shende and Patil (2016) highlighted that the gradually extinction or decrease in the number of sparrows is due to loss of habitats. Sparrows mainly resides on hedge type of habitat but present fad for landscape beautification caused replacement of natural hedge habitats by steel solid fences thus resulting in loss of habits. The rising environmental pollution, effects of pesticides used in grains or to kill insects, is also endangering the feeding options for sparrows. Lastly, the electromagnetic radiation emitted from the mobile phone towers is causing premature deaths of sparrows and thus promoting extinction. I used to think, how can a small bird like a sparrow be important for our living but reading scientific articles helped me to understand that sparrows also play a major role in environment and ecosystem as it act as a natural pest control by feeding insects and on larvae of mosquitoes (Shende & Patil, 2016). Since, schools we were taught that plastics are non-biodegradable and are harmful for nature. However, I have never thought deeply about how the use of plastics is leading to extinction of numerous marine animals. My basic research through the scientific articles and
4REFLECTIVE ESSAY take by me apart from generating awareness among my peers include less use of the plastic made products, availing public transport only when travelling long distance and choosing to walk to cover small stretches rather than taking cars. I also encouraged my family members and my friends so follow the same. The Managing Change helped me to gain knowledge about various change management models like the Kotter’s 8-step change model and Peter Senge Organisational Model of Change. I mainly used thePeter Senge Model of Changein order to implement the change in practice for protection of the endangered species. This model is based on five different disciplines first include building of theshared vision. According to the mode, the vision must be created through effective communication with the employees of the organisations(Jackson, 2017). This effective communication help the member to take active initiatives towards implementing the change and also believing that change will help to bring a positive output in the long-run. In order to build shared vision, I indulged in effective communication with my closed peers in order to make them understand the importance of the endangered species conservation. However, I faced certain challenges in generation shared vision initially, few of my friends told that, “Why will I walk, when I can use my car to reach the destination on time, I don’t care about species extinction”. In such scenarios, I made them understand that walking to cover small distance is not only helpful for the conservation of the species but also will be helpful for maintenance of the health and well-being. This understanding motivated him to take waling small distance rather than using cars. The second stage of the Senge Model of Change issystems thinkingand it vouches that instead of focusing on the individual issues, systems thinking reflection on the observational process of an entire system(Jackson, 2017). Thus on focus on the individualised actions, I mainly projected on the bigger picture. My projection towards the bigger picture is helped me to understand that taking small-initiative in day-to-day living like
5REFLECTIVE ESSAY banning the use of plastics and instead choosing paper made bags will help to promote conservation of the endangered species and at the same time will help to reduce the threats of floods and environmental pollution. I also helped my peers to understand the use of paper made bags is eco-friendly and will helpful for the species conservation in the long run. The third step of the model is mental models and promotes aligning the change principle with thepersonal valuesof the employees(Mosimane et al., 2014). My personal values is to reside in a world where the right of living of every species both human, animals, birds and plants are conserved. I also channelized the same in my family members and the peers. Few of my family members asked me, “why should I conserve species…tigers always feed on humans, it kills us, it is better to get to them extinct”. This sudden question kept me awestruck. I studied why the preservation of tiger is important. I found that numerous studies have highlighted that tigers mainly feed on deer that in turn feed on grasses and green shrubs. The extinction of tigers will lead to increase in the number of deer. More will be the number of deer, more they will feed on the greeneries leading of loos of green grass and thereby creating oxygen depletion(Yumnam et al., 2014). I explained the same to my friend who raised the topic and this helped to implement the mental model and thus helping to bring the change in practice. The fourth and the fifth step of Senge Model of Change areteam learningand personal masteryrespectively. Team learning is an amalgamation of personal mastery and shared vision(Jackson, 2017). Personal mastery occurs when the individual has a clear vision in order to bring the change. My mission was to bring change in personal practice for the conservation of the endangered species and this helped to motivate and direct my peers in the required direction and thereby helping to implement the change. For example, when I was visited zoo with the friends and family, I saw my family members walking down the street to visit the zoo (zoo was 20 minutes walking distance from my home). This initiative helped to
6REFLECTIVE ESSAY reduce unwanted use of the auto-mobiles. I also found that my friends are using paper bags in the grocery shops and taking active initiative to dispose plastics separately from the biodegradable trash. The implementation of this change management for the wildlife conservation in the Punjabi Market helped to come across various new concepts about which I used to have little knowledge before and this helped me to understand that high cost of paper bags or the poor availability of the paper bags and increase piracy of the leather jackets are some of the barriers behind the effective implementation of the wildlife conservation. When I came to Canada, I saw a completely different environment, I local markets of Canada, I saw a squirrel roaming freely. This is something unusual because in India, the markets are so over-crowed there are limited chance of see squirrels. After watching that pretty black squirrel, I approach towards it with some nuts in my hands. Initially I found squirrel to look frightened but after observing me for some time, it approached toward me gradually and took nuts from my hand. This helped me to gain new insight about the animal and human relationships. Animals will not harm you unless you harm them. The trust between animal and humans and allowing them their own place to thrive in will help to prevent the chances of extinction(Cembalo et al., 2016). At the end, I would like to conclude that use of the change model is effective in bringing change in practice and going forward I will help to incorporate new initiatives like exchange of friendly behaviour with the animals and conservation of the animal habitat in order to promote conservation of the endangered species.
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7REFLECTIVE ESSAY References Animal Planet. (2019).Endangered Species.Access date: 22ndApril 2019. Retrieved from: http://www.animalplanet.com/wild-animals/endangered-species/about-endangered- species/ Cembalo, L., Caracciolo, F., Lombardi, A., Del Giudice, T., Grunert, K. G., & Cicia, G. (2016). Determinants of individual attitudes toward animal welfare-friendly food products.Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics,29(2), 237-254. Chaudhary, A., Verones, F., de Baan, L., & Hellweg, S. (2015). Quantifying land use impacts on biodiversity: combining species–area models and vulnerability indicators.Environmental science & technology,49(16), 9987-9995. Davis, H. (2015). Life & death in the Anthropocene: A short history of plastic.Art in the anthropocene: Encounters among aesthetics, politics, environments and epistemologies, 347-58. Jackson, B. G. (2017). A Fanatasy Theme Analysis of Peter Senge’s Learning Organization. InThe Aesthetic Turn in Management(pp. 139-155). Routledge. Mosimane, A. W., McCool, S., Brown, P., & Ingrebretson, J. (2014). Using mental models in the analysis of human–wildlife conflict from the perspective of a social–ecological system in Namibia.Oryx,48(1), 64-70. Shende, V. A., & Patil, K. G. (2016). Electromagnetic Radiations: A Possible Impact on Population of House Sparrow (Passer Domesticus).Engineering International,3(1), 45-52.
8REFLECTIVE ESSAY The National Wildlife Federation. (2019).Endangered species. Access date: 22ndApril 2019. Retrieved from: https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Understanding- Conservation/Endangered-Species U.S Fish & wildlife Service. (2019). Urban Wildlife Conservation Program.Access date: 22ndApril 2019. Retrieved from:https://www.fws.gov/refuges/ Yumnam, B., Jhala, Y. V., Qureshi, Q., Maldonado, J. E., Gopal, R., Saini, S., ... & Fleischer, R. C. (2014). Prioritizing tiger conservation through landscape genetics and habitat linkages.PLoS One,9(11), e111207.