I am not one to drool over oysters, or to salivate at the mere mention of caviar. No, even bluefin tuna doesn't tickle my taste buds. The reason, you may say, is that I cannot always afford them. And right you are if you think so!

But what about salmon and sardines, clams and crabs, mussels and lobsters? Sorry, they don't make my banquet either.

Give me pork, beef, chicken or lamb any day and I wouldn't bother you with any of those fancy little morsels of seafood cuisine that are many a gourmet's delight.

Believe me when I tell you that I hadn't realized my love for red meat till I came to this paragraph. And now that I know it, I care even less about the creatures that swim in water ponds, lakes, rivers, seas and oceans. But even before my culinary preference dawned on me, the loss of seafood in less than half a century sounded like another piece of alarmist news to me.

There is, of course, a reason for that. Even if virtually nothing is left to fish from the seas by the middle of this century (if current trends continue), why should I be bothered? In all probability, I would have enjoyed more than my share of the Earth's spoils by then (if I'm still breathing, that is). I would be reading books, and watching movies at home (I'm sure technology will make that possible by then). Don't get me wrong I'm talking about watching movies on cinema-sized TV screens.

And of course I'd still be enjoying my red meat lunch, dinner and supper with perhaps a few vegetables thrown in here and there.

Oh, forgive me! I forgot to tell you about my great wish to be able to play with my grandchildren, grandnieces and grandnephews. So I'll be doing that too. Life for me, you see, is really cut out.

But wait a second! What would I tell those children if they asked me about seafood? Should I just tell them that the tuna used to be a fish that grew big enough to weigh more than 100 kilograms? Should I tell them to look it up in an encyclopaedia (or an even more advanced search engine on the Net) to find out what the animals looked and tasted like?

But now I'm going into pedagogic mode. This ought to stop. Didn't my father and grandfather enjoy a lot more things than I do today? Isn't that the law of nature the more you exploit, the sooner a resource is exhausted?

Yes, that's exactly what I will tell those kids. End of story!

It's a different matter if they ask me why we didn't try to control our greed, even after repeated warnings. We could have done so, to at least let them get a small share of the good things that Mother Earth had to offer.

Well, that's set me thinking. But I know how to get over that too. I'll just feign ignorance.

I only know that I am fully at peace with myself. Nothing can make me worry about the depletion of marine life, or life on land for that matter. Why should I be bothered if the forests are gone? I'm sure I won't need any more timber for myself, or my family. And frankly speaking, I don't care much about all those animals and birds living in the forests, be they of the evergreen or rain variety.

I am fine as long as my world is not disturbed. I don't have the time for all the fish, squid, clams and prawns in the seas. Ironically, I know the loss of sea life is not only about the loss of seafood. So what!

Haven't I always known that ol' Pete Seeger song "Where have all the flowers gone?" is not about flowers alone. It's about young girls and young men. It's about the young men's graves where they rest after being killed in wars. And it's about all the flowers the girls have placed on their graves.

You see, we all know this and much more. But are we bothered?

Email: zouhr@chinadaily.com.hk

(China Daily 11/17/2006 page4)