Africa’s Elephants Are Being Slaughtered in Poaching Frenzy.
Linking Twin Extinctions Of Species and Languages by Verlyn Klinkenborg. 17 Jul 2012: Essay by verlyn klinkenborg Like many people, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about — and mourning — the cascading extinction of species caused by human activity. But only recently has it occurred to me to frame it this way: Humans have lived past the peak of biological diversity on this planet. There may well be other, higher peaks of biodiversity after we’re gone, but the best I can imagine as long as we’re around is a slight decline in the calamitous rate of extinction. As it happens, we’ve also lived past the peak of linguistic diversity — the number of different human languages spoken on this planet.
The loss would be more evident if each of this planet’s nearly 7,000 human languages was spoken by a separate species — one species per language. According to a recent study, there is a close correlation between biological diversity and linguistic diversity. Most languages are habitats, linked closely to the physical habitats in which they occur. This much is easy to see. Yale Environment 360: Opinion, Analysis, Reporting & Debate. Intrinsic Value, Ecology, and Conservation | Learn Science at Scitable. In "What is Conservation Biology? " Michael Soulé discusses several "normative postulates" of conservation biology, including that "biotic diversity has intrinsic value" (Soulé 1985). The idea that nature and biotic diversity have intrinsic value has been defended by several influential environmental ethicists (Rolston 1986, Callicott 1989), and it has featured prominently in some significant international declarations regarding the environment (United Nations 1992a, Earth Charter International 2000).
Those who endorse the view that species and ecosystems possess intrinsic value believe that recognition of it is crucial both to justifying conservation biology and setting appropriate conservation goals. This contribution addresses these core questions regarding intrinsic value and conservation: What is intrinsic value? Figure 1: Quotations on the Intrinsic Value of Species. Intrinsic value is the value that an entity has in itself, for what it is, or as an end (Figure 1).
Circle of Life - Magazine. Namibia is trying to save its lions by charging trophy fees to kill them. Aaron Ansarov/Aurora Images We were crossing on foot through a scrubby patch of African wilderness when the guide casually noted that all the usual prey animals seemed to have gone elsewhere, a hint of lions in the neighborhood. This particular neighborhood, he added informatively, was home to a pride known for being “ballsy”—they “don’t run away from people, the way lions usually do.”
The standard protocol, when hikers and lions bump into each other in the African bush, is for the lions to run, with the dominant male lion fleeing first. (That business about noble lion kings sacrificing themselves for family turns out to be one of the bigger, ballsier lies about the male gender.) That day, sadly or otherwise, our lions did not rouse themselves, and I was reduced to the tourist pastime of watching lions during an open-vehicle game drive.
Richard Conniff’s most recent book is The Species Seekers.
BBC articles. Conservation Bytes. Mongabay articles. The Guardian articles. Monbiot. Philosophy_other.