"Intrinsic Values on Earth: Nature and the Nations (UNESCO)." Pages 47-67 in Henk A.M.J. ten Have, ed., Environmental Ethics and International Policy (Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 2006). ISBN: 13:987-92-3-104039-9. Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/40513

Ultimately and increasingly, humans are responsible for and to Earth as planet and biosphere. Peoples in their nations are and ought to be united on one Earth, with an ethic inclusive of both humans and nature. Only people can be ethical, but this does not mean that only people count in ethics; to the contrary we are fully human only when we appropriately respect life on Earth in all its rich biodiversity. Much of the urgency for conserving biodiversity arises from our duties to other humans, with nature instrumental to what humans have at stake in their environments. These interests directly feed into national interests and require international cooperation. But a deeper environmental ethics recognizes intrinsic values in and duties directly to nature. Such duties arise because values are distributed at the levels of animals, living organisms, endangered species, and ecosystems as biotic communities, as well as in human life. Cumulatively, this demands an Earth ethics — an important mission of the United Nations.