If We Save the Tigers, We'll Save the Planet

Perhaps the Hollywood blockbuster hero Leonardo DiCaprio's star prowess would shift the urgent attention to the impending extinction of tigers, and overall ecological connection between the survival of this "burning bright eyes" species and human beings' own survival would get the necessary cinematic limelight it deserves. Why is the survival of tiger important? Here is the answer from DiCaprio and Carter S. Robert's article:

"Because saving tigers is a compelling and cost-effective means of preserving so much more that is essential to life on Earth. The tiger is what conservationists call an "umbrella" species. By rescuing them, we save everything beneath their ecological umbrella - everything connected to them - including the world's last great forests, whose carbon storage mitigates climate change. 

For example, Indonesia's 18 million-acre peat forests, home to the Sumatran tiger, contain 36 percent of the world's tropical carbon stores. So if we protect tigers by stopping deforestation, we also salvage the carbon storage these forests provide. A forest that can't support tigers isn't of much use to us, either."

It's not only the survival of tigers that is crucial. The fact is the world we live in, breathe everyday without much of a pondering thought,  is intricately woven by natural balance, where one species, from mammals, to invertebrates to botanical wonders, from single to multi cellular complex life forms are interdependent. Shifting this balance means the collapse of harmony on which our very existence is based upon.

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/11/AR2010111105607.html