One of the advantages of having been a pioneer nutritionist is that many of the aware people who walked into my very first health food store in Mumbai in 1990, have since become friends. My current business, although without a retail outlet, still prompts enough off-the-beaten-track people to search me out. It’s one of the perks of the work I do.

One such unusual individual who sought me out was Nigel Whittle. Recently I caught up with him in Sussex, where he spent a day with me at my aunt’s lovely country home. She and her husband, retired medical practitioners, were completely mesmerised by Nigel as he explained the connection between tigers, organic food and commercial banks.

Nigel has been obsessed with tigers from the age of six. At age 11 he read Jim Corbett’s Man Eaters of Kumaon which prompted him to study zoology. Subsequently he started a charity, Life Force, which he has been steering for over a decade now, with his base in Madhya Pradesh. You can check out his work on www.lifeforceindia.com.

The basic proposition of Life Force is that tiger conservation is people conservation. While writing this column I have drawn generously on the voluminous literature published by Life Force and some passages are taken verbatim.

Whatever their colour, race or religion, most people are concerned only about their work, family and putting food on the table. But they need to think beyond these boundaries. About what their food and work ultimately depend upon.

Some of the following principles and facts may be familiar to you. But they bear repetition because they remind us that the cycle of life starts from the same place. With sunlight, water, air and soil, plants and forests grow, providing food, cover and shelter to insects, birds and herbivores, which, in turn, provide food for carnivores.

Each group of animals forms a level in a hierarchy. Each level does not merely rely on the level beneath for food. The benefits are mutual. For example: insects and birds pollinate or fertilise flowers and other plants. Herbivores and monkeys eat fruits and distribute their seeds in the surrounding environment.

Nature favours diversity of species. In similar ways to examples given above, predators reduce competition among prey species, so that no single species crowds out another. For example, in the rock pools on the west coast of the US, the community is made up of starfish and 15 other species (including algae, sponges, barnacles, mussels and limpets), three of which the starfish feeds on. The starfish is on the top of the food chain (like the tiger in the Indian ecosystem). Researchers removed the starfish from some of the pools. In these pools mussels crowded out barnacles and all but one specie moved away for lack of food while the number of species dropped from 15 to 8. The other pools where starfish remained, maintained the original community. So, removing a top predator from the complex food web has an unhealthy cascading effect.

That’s the argument for saving India’s tigers. At the beginning of the 20th century there were eight sub-species of tigers. During the past century, Balinese, Javan and Caspian tigers became extinct. The remaining tiger populations are all numbered in hundreds, if not fewer, except one: the Indian sub-species, which has a population in four figures — even though estimates are not accurate. However, this is no cause for complacency. In a country the size of India, this very low number indicates that the decline of the big cat population this century has been drastic. Which way will the graph continue in the future? Will there be a future for us if the graph plots the tiger’s extinction?

An Indonesian proverb states: Tigers are killed without forest and the tiger-less forest is cut down. So the tiger should guard the forest and vice versa.

We cannot expect change in the world if we cannot change ourselves. Mahatma Gandhi said “You must see in yourself the change you want to see in the world.” How will we answer to Allah, Brahma, God about how we have treated His creation and gift to us? We are not separate and distinct from nature. Whatever we do to Nature, we ultimately do to ourselves. All things are connected. The only thing which is partial is our understanding.

This is the connection of tigers, forests and the food chain I learned from Nigel. He also taught me that you can check out what the bank does with your money and then decide whom to bank with. Ethical banking and investing ensures that public finances are used to promote healthy and/ or ethical projects and development which do not harm people or the environment. Tiger conservation, organic food, ethical banking, besides other choices we make, are all part of people conservation. As I’ve said before, even the toothpaste you buy shapes the earth we live on!

While we cannot devote our entire time to saving the world as Nigel does, we can, however, do our bit to make it a better place. I hope I have been able to make the case that every action born out of awareness goes a long way in shaping the future of our children.

(Kavita Mukhi is a Mumbai-based eco-nutritionist and director of Conscious Food)