What really is the difference?

(I am writing the first two paragraphs entirely from memory)
Thom Hartmann once quoted about an incident when he was on a radio show. He was talking about protecting species that are endangered. One caller asked him - "Why? Aren't humans enough? For example, why the heck do we need a spotted owl?".

Another person was walking in a forest with a guide. The guide suddenly asks him to be quiet. The reason? That was the spot where spotted owls were living (in large numbers presumably). It was a sacred spot!

What was the difference between the caller on the radio show and the guide? It is not a difference in point of view. The difference is much larger. It is the difference in the extent of inclusion a person has to the rest of life. One can attribute a thousand reasons to why this level of inclusion varies between people. This is the reason why at one extreme I see people literally bleeding life strength through their words and eyes talking about saving species and the other extreme where people poach the very same species at the edge of extinction. This is the same reason why one nation can fund multi-billion dollar armies and weapons to invade another country under the guise of WMD while conservation groups go begging for funds to protect species which may well be hale and hearty if not for our screw up in the first place.

My take is that all these efforts will go to naught - or at best prolong the inevitable, unless we as a species become more inclusive. We are supposed to be stewards, not exploiters. If we try to enforce this through laws, corporations and people will work around it or in clouty places, break it. In spirit and understanding, people will do the right things at all time.

Now, we need a multi pronged solution. One person on the planet earth series remarked that sustainable development is an oxymoron of sorts. He called for sustainable retreat of human species. True! This is what we need. We shouldn't be looking for expansion - we should retreat. We need more wilderness and biodiversity. Which means populations should reduce. Which means that people should first be on board for mass scale reconfiguration of birth and death rates. CEOs of major corporations that wipe out acres of forest in a single day need to be on board. The whole human race needs to act on a single point agenda that involves multiple solutions [afforestation, population reduction, reduction in use of fossil fuels, heck may be mass-vegetarianism even]. To put the agenda positively - restore the eco-fabric of this planet. Conversely, to undo the cluster-fuck we are in. We need the majority of people seeing the situation that way.

But will preaching work? Never! Only inclusion will. The sad things are that - there isn't enough time and that by the time actually get to realize this, let alone act on the scale needed to make a difference, irreversible damage would have been done. May be it is already so.