Biology Without Conservation: An Environmental Misfit and Contradiction in Terms
—Conservation for the 21st Century, 1989

"Biology Without Conservation: An Environmental Misfit and Contradiction in Terms," pp. 232-240 in David Western and Mary C. Pearl, eds., Conservation for the Twenty-first Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). Online at: https://hdl.handle.net/10217/233887

Every biological organism is per se a conservationist, defending its life. Nonconservation is death. Although not moral agents, organisms are normative systems that value life intrinsically, for what each individual life is in itself, without further contributory reference beyond conserving that kind. An ecosystem is thus a systemic web of intrinsic values defended and instrumental values captured. Humans can and ought to use their environment resourcefully, conserving their own kind of life. But, as the sole moral agents among Earth's millions of species, humans ought also to conserve Earth's biological processes of value, processes that precede and exceed the human presence. Conservation goals, although cultural attitudes, ought not to be merely cultural attitudes, but ought to conserve nonanthropocentric biological values present. Biology without conservation is a contradiction in terms, as well as misfit in its environment.