a great deal of talk is heard these days about protecting threatened animal species,preserving forests, improving the environment, and even restoring the "quality of life". And yet these notions very sometimes seem hazy and the motives behind them are as a rule neither very clear nor very rational. The case for the conservation of nature must be more satisfactorily explained before it can be more effectively defended.
Some 10,000 years ago, an abundant and noble form of animal life, the mammoth, disappeared forever from the face of the earth, perhaps as a result of the long hail of blows imposed on it by our distant ancestors, doubyless too because its disappearance had already been decided in the indifferent evolution of species.
No one today is concered about the fate of the mammoth,whose extinction has been no hindrance to the development and flowering of human civilizations.the survival or disappearance of a single species notwithstanding,the great adventure of life goes on.on the other hand,the world as we and our children envision it today would undeniably be the poorer if the elephant,for example,became extinct.the philosopher immanuel kant maintained that man has duties to himself only.does he ,then,owe none to the elephant?or to the whale?