TOK Journal Entry 3: Are we paying enough attention to our history? - Writing Wednesday
Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,
Today I'm going to be talking about the endangered Tasmanian Devil for my TOK journal today. Please visit the second photo on the article in the link as I'll be talking about it today. I hope you find it interesting!
Are we paying enough attention to our history?
View photo for this journal: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/27/the-rocks-remember-the-fight-to-protect-burrup-peninsulas-rock-art
I was recently re-watching one of my favourite David Attenborough documentaries, Seven Worlds One Planet, with my sister on a Saturday morning. There were many episodes made covering a range of different countries across the seven continents but the most notable episode, to me, was the one that I watched on Australia with my sister on that Saturday morning. We enjoyed watching the bats quickly skimming the water for a drink, risking the jaws of alligators, as well as the muscular wombat, slowly trudging the snowy mountains for shrubbery. However, towards the end of the episode we watched a cute, brown Tasmanian Devil cub emerge from its burrow with its sibling in search for food. After being a huge Looney Toons fan when I was younger, watching intently at the adventures of the Road Runner and the Tasmanian Devil, I was surprised at how shy and cute these little creatures looked in comparison to what was depicted on the cartoon. I was also shocked to find out, that against what I had originally thought, these Tasmanian Devils were endangered with only 25,000 individuals left in the wild. According to the documentary, the original threat was the European settlers that entered Australia as they had viewed the Tasmanian Devil as a pest and consequently hunted the species to near extinction with dogs. This was changed however, in 1941, when measures were taken to restore the population of a species that was so near to the heart of Australian culture. However, in 1996, a deadly disease called the Devil Facial Tumour Disease (DFT) emerged and with no cure, it became widespread throughout Australia, isolating a small population of the species to Tasmania. This leads me onto the photograph and my question: are we paying enough attention to our history? This photograph is of an indigenous drawing of a Tasmanian Devil, a clear lovable animal that was once respected amongst our prehistoric ancestors. However, what I see today is a complete disregard for our history. With the Tasmanian Devil becoming endangered and with non-indigenous individuals marking these beautiful drawings with something that doesn't respect the meaning behind the drawing, it is clear that we're becoming more distant with our past and it's affecting our future. I believe that history is a form of knowledge, and if we took the time to learn the history behind these drawings, perhaps more would be done to help save the Tasmanian devil that is the mascot of Australia. This is because I believe that if people knew what they were contributing towards by either not helping these animals or by graffitiing these drawings, they would stop their actions after seeing the consequences. The documentary was really insightful to me, and I would like to spread more awareness about this issue to the people around me.
The Morning Show
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