Tolerance and conservation

The strangely orchestrated music of the Amazon played all around me as I made my way to the toilet with the help of my flashlight. It was a moonless night and in the absence of electricity, the darkness was complete. The toilet was a huge pit dug in the ground over which a concrete ‘seat’ had been built. I sat down to relive myself and I felt tiny insects crawl all over me. I jumped up and flashed my torch on the seat. Goosebumps erupted all over my body as I saw termites crawling all over the seat. I ran back to my field assistant, who was from the indigenous tribe in the area, screaming, ‘Kill it! Kill it!’ He went to the toilet to investigate the source of my excitement. He came back laughing. ‘They’re just termites. They don’t even bite!’

I snuggled into my quilt grateful to be in a bed after two weeks in a sleeping bag. The nights in Ladakh were not forgiving. I felt a sharp bite on my neck. Thinking it was a mosquito I swatted it but I felt something much bigger under my fingers. I pinched the squirming insect and brought it in front of my face to examine it. My eyes widened in horror as I realised it was a bed bug. I jumped out of bed, throwing back the quilt. Black bodies scuttled for cover on the bed. I ran for the homestay owner who was a local Ladakhi. She examined my mattress, picked up the bed bugs one-by-one and placed them in an open glass. ‘Kill it! Kill it!’ I screamed at her. She smiled. ‘We’re Buddhists. We don’t kill!’

I’m an ecologist trying to study human-wildlife conflict but I’m a pure-bred city girl with limited understanding of its complexity. These two experiences completely changed my perception of the issue and people’s level of tolerance. Here I was, trying to work in conservation and when an animal I saw as a pest invaded my space, I wanted to kill it. The locals were more tolerant. I now look at the intolerance to wildlife when lives and livelihoods are at stake, in a different light, especially knowing I am tolerant of far less.