The word for animal is Dou Butsu. The two kanji taken literally mean, move-thing. Animals are organisms which move.
As a practical matter, animals can be said to fall into two broad categories. A small category and a much larger category.

At a minimum, tens of thousands of organisms are going extinct in the Amazon. When we think of biodiversity, we think of Jonathan Weiner. We could blame Jonathan and try to ignore what he has written but, that wouldn't do any good. When we think of Jonathan Weiner, we think of the song, Guantanamera. Jonathan Weiner gives such a clear picture of the ridiculous waste going on around the globe and especially in Central and South America. The Amazon, which has had such a dense concentration of biodiversity, will lose so many kinds of organisms that we cry when we think about it. This is the century when so much will be lost. All you can do is watch the evil play-by-play in satellite images. You can't stop it. When we hear Guantanamera, we think about the sad loss, and we cry. We just can't help it, we say why, oh why and we cry. Pretty silly, huh?

Luis Klemas, the rain forest guy sent us the words to the song, Guantanamera. It has a very strong Buddhist sentiment, don't you think? Cultivate a rose for the arrogant who would deny or encourage mass extinctions. What else can be done?

GUANTANAMERA

Yo soy un hombre sincero
De donde crecen las palmas
Yo soy un hombre sincero
De donde crecen las palmas
Y antes de morirme quiero
Echar mis versos del alma

(I am a truthful man,
From the land of the palm.
Before dying, I want to
share these poems of my soul.)

CHORUS  (AFTER EACH VERSE):
Guantanamera!  Guajira!
Guantanamera!
Guantanamera!  Guajira!
Guantanamera!

Mi verso es de un verde claro
Y de un carmin encendido
Mi verso es de un verde claro
Y de un carmin encendido
Mi verso es un ciervo herido
Que busca en el monte amparo

(My verses are light green,
But they are also flaming red.
My verses are like a wounded fawn,
Seeking refuge in the mountain.)

Cultivo la Rosa blanca
En junio como en enero
Cultivo la Rosa blanca
En junio como en enero
Para el amigo sincero
Que me da su mano franca

(I cultivate a white rose
In June and in January
For the sincere friend
Who gives me his hand.)

Y para el cruel que me arranca
El corazon con que vivo
Y para el cruel que me arranca
El corazon con que vivo
Cardo ni ortiga cultivo
Cultivo la rosa blanca

(And for the cruel one who would tear out
This heart with which I live.
I cultivate neither thistles nor nettles
I cultivate a white rose.)

Con los pobres de la tierra
Quiero yo mi suerte echar
Con los pobres de la tierra
Quiero yo mi suerte echar
El arroyo de la sierra
Me complace mas que el mar

(With the poor people of this earth,
I want to share my lot.
The little streams of the mountains
Please me more than the sea.)

Original lyrics and music by Jose Fernandez Diaz  (Joseito Fernandez)
Music arranged and adapted by Julian Orbon, Hector Angulo and Pete Seeger
Words (verses) by Jose Marti, lyrics adapted by Julian Orbon (1949)
©1963,1965 (Renewed) Fall River Music, Inc (BMI)

Hitsuyou na DouButsu

There are the Hitsuyou na DouButsu.

Hitsuyou no nai Doubutsu.

There are the Hitsuyou no nai Doubutsu.

DouButsu...

DouButsu, animals, are a popular subject for graphic images. There may be as many as seven or eight hundred images here for our viewers. We encourage all users who have images of animals to have them displayed. Images of the more pulchritudinous photogenic species are prefered. But, even images of ugly species of organisms you may have will be appreciated by everyone. We would particularly like to hear from professional botanists, icthyologists, ornithologists, entomologists, marine biologists, ecologists and paleobiologists. People seem interested in images of species which will soon become mere specimens in the shrinking national park zoos around the world. Impending doom gives these organisms a fleeting notoriety which seems to increase their popularity.

The big bad plant guy, Peter Raven. What a hero!

What about plants? Plant habitat continues to be fragmented and eliminated with extreme rapidity all over the globe and especially in the tropics. If one were to estimate plant extinction rates, it's pretty ridiculous not to include the tropics. That's where most plant species live.

World Plants Near Exctinction Close to 50%- Study
Friday, November 1, 2002, (Reuters) - "The percentage of the world's plants threatened with extinction is much larger than is commonly believed, and could be as high as 47 percent if tropical species are included, researchers said on Thursday. The study published in the November issue of Science, challenges earlier research that estimated the number of species in danger of extinction was about 13 percent. Previous studies of extinct plants underestimated the numbers because they failed to include many plants growing in tropical countries such as Ecuador and Colombia."
More...

Fragmentation doesn't look so bad. What the heck, it's still pretty green, isn't it?

Buddha's Message

"In one of the oldest sutras, Suttanipata, the Buddha preached that, "The more comfortable our life becomes, the more convenient our life becomes, the more time passes, -- the more the human heart becomes cold in inverse proportion."

"Today, most of the people in the advanced countries are enjoying a level of material wealth and prosperity unprecedented in human history. However, it is also true that without realizing the difference between materials of happiness and happiness itself, people today have become intoxicated with superficial affluence, allowing their spiritual existence to degenerate."

"Self-centered philosophies tend to see the self as absolute, and this has become the fundamental cause that has created global problems in the 20th century."

"I firmly believe that for this irreplaceable earth to survive in the 21st century, there is no other way but to follow the Buddhist teaching of coexistence and symbiosis. And in order to repay Buddha's benevolence, I intend to spare no effort to convey this teaching of peace and equality to the whole world."

Toshihide Numata, Chairperson, Bukkyou Dendou Kyoukai.

Click for full text.

The title is misleading. Biodiversity has already been horribly damaged. But this book is in a class by itself. It gives a thorough big picture account of the ecological crisis. Its emphasis is ecology, biodiversity, and science. Jonathan Weiner, 1990.

Biodiversity Buddies.

Most humans and especially Americans know in exquisite detail what has been happening and are inured to it. Complacency rules.
We don't like what's been going on for the last couple of centuries. Habitat destruction on a massive scale and increasing day by day. 135 species shoved into extinction each and every day. It's unnecessary. It's dumb. It's wrong. It's evil.