For most of human history, we lived as one species among many. We shared forests with elephants, rivers with hippos, skies with vultures, and coastlines with turtles whose migrations predate our earliest civilizations. The natural world was not a backdrop to human life; it was the condition that made human life possible. For millennia, animals and ecosystems existed in a balance shaped by climate, instinct, and time — not by human ambition. Today that balance is collapsing, not because nature changed, but because we did.
Deforestation, industrial expansion, mining, poaching, and the global appetite for profit have pushed countless species to the edge of extinction. Forests that once stood for centuries now fall in days. Rivers that sustained entire communities now carry toxins. Animals that evolved over millions of years now disappear faster than we can name them. And yet, in the midst of this destruction, a dangerous idea persists: that humans are the chosen species, entitled to dominate the earth and everything on it. This belief — ancient in origin, modern in its consequences — has become one of the most destructive ideologies of our time.
The Myth of Human Superiority
Human beings often speak as though we are the center of creation. We behave as though the earth was designed for our consumption, our comfort, our expansion. But the truth is simpler and far less flattering: we are not the architects of this planet. We are not the authors of biodiversity. We are not the custodians we pretend to be. We are one species among millions — and the only one destroying the conditions that sustain us. Elephants do not clear forests for profit. Wolves do not poison rivers. Whales do not warm the oceans. Insects do not destabilize the climate. Only humans do this, and we do it while insisting that we are the “intelligent” ones.
Animals Have Coexisted Longer Than Our Civilizations Have Existed
Before the first empire rose, elephants were already shaping savannahs. Before the first city was built, whales were already navigating oceans. And before the first human carved a tool, birds were already migrating across continents and weaving nests with a mastery that required no teacher. Their craftsmanship predates our own, reminding us that the natural world was building, creating, and sustaining life long before humans claimed to be the planet’s designers.
Nature does not need us. We need nature. Yet the modern world behaves as though conservation is an act of charity — something we do for animals out of kindness. In reality, conservation is an act of self‑preservation. When a species disappears, an ecosystem weakens. When ecosystems weaken, human survival becomes uncertain. We are not saving animals. We are saving the conditions that allow us to live.
Empire’s Greed Is the Real Predator
The greatest threat to wildlife is not hunger, drought, or disease. It is the global economic system built on extraction. Forests fall because corporations want timber and land. Elephants die because ivory is profitable. Sharks vanish because their fins are currency. Rainforests burn because soy and cattle feed distant markets. This is not nature’s violence. This is empire’s violence — the violence of profit without responsibility. And it raises a question we rarely ask: what kind of species destroys the world it depends on?
The Disease of Human Exceptionalism
The belief that humans are “God chosen ones” or “superior” has become a moral disease. It allows us to justify destruction as destiny. It allows us to treat other species as resources rather than lives. It allows us to imagine that intelligence is measured by domination rather than coexistence. But intelligence without restraint is not wisdom. Power without responsibility is not leadership. Dominion without care is not stewardship. If anything, our behavior reveals not superiority but insecurity — a species unsure of its place, compensating with control.
The Question We Must Finally Ask
If humans are truly the “God chosen ones”-species, then chosen for what — to dominate or to protect, to consume or to coexist? The answer will determine not only the fate of animals but the fate of our own species.
A Different Imagination Is Possible
Conservation is not about returning to the past. It is about choosing a future — a future where forests are valued for more than their timber, where animals are recognized as co‑inhabitants rather than commodities, where human progress is measured not by what we extract but by what we preserve. This requires humility — the recognition that we are not the center of the world but part of it. It requires restraint — the willingness to limit our appetites. And it requires responsibility — the courage to confront the systems that profit from destruction.
Because the truth is simple: when we destroy the natural world, we destroy ourselves. And no belief in human exceptionalism will save us from the consequences of our own arrogance.
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This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Sammy Attoh.