Biodiversity Conservation and Its Opponents

• Although there is a worldwide surge of interest in conservation, many justifications rest on shaky or ephemeral grounds. • Arguments for conservation of biodiversity often include strong ethical or aesthetic components which are superficially attractive but depend on potentially changeable social circumstances. • Economic justifications based on undiscovered potential are susceptible to changing external conditions and so are highly uncertain. • Biodiversity can erect a barrier against super-pathogens and so prevent catastrophic collapses in food security. • Recent developments in extinction theory are being appropriated to underpin spurious justifications for environmental destruction. • The assumption that indigenous peoples will tend to conserve their environment holds true only in specific cases. • Any effective policy response must be on scientific and educational levels. Continued support to hard science, notably taxonomy, remains a priority, as many questions of direct relevance to policy remain unresolved. Without a more informed public, shriller voices will continue to dominate the debate, making it difficult to institutionalise effective conservation.