Endangered species and biodiversity

Abstract

Anthropocene enthusiasts assert the dominant human place in nature, conservation policy, and the biosphere, with plans for managing, even re-engineering the planet. This worldview de-emphasizes the goal of protecting nature for its own sake in favor of protecting and revising the environment for benefits to humans. But this preserves endangered species only so far as they promise benefits for humans. Environmental ethicists raise concerns that this effort to go beyond nature fails to recognize both Earth's creative genesis and the myriads of species lines, a failure which diminishes the richness of life on Earth, and simultaneously the fullness of human life.