Live and don't let die: Why do conservationists want to save everything?
KF- Writer and Editor What's black and white and really wants to go extinct? Pandas have been conserved fairly successfully, with the population seeing a 17% increase over the last decade. However, this is only due to an incredible amount of work done by the poor humans dedicated to pulling these fluffy imbeciles back from the precipice of extinction they are so determined to flop over. In this instance, it can be easy to question whether or not it’s actually worth conserving a species which seems so hellbent on deleting itself from the fossil record. So why do we conservationists choose to keep things alive when it seems to cause nothing but debt and trouble? Broadly speaking, rationales for conservation can be split into two main schools: 1. Utilitarian For some people it’s the cold hard cash. The utilitarian style of thinking tries to quantify the value of biodiversity to humans. This is one reason rich people choose to fund conservation on game reserves, because there is hu