Leading Conservationists Make Efforts To Resolve Reasons to Conserve Nature

A new petition, launched early November, by 240 leading conservationists, including UC Santa Cruz faculty, makes the point that conservational efforts are being grossly hindered by the field's lack of inclusiveness. The petition hopes to move past a personal debate which has invaded the field lately, which pits two camps against each other. 

The two camps argue for nature's instrumental value (we must protect nature to help ourselves) and intrinsic value (whereas, nature should be protected for its own sake). Two notable Banana Slug voices in this debate are Heather Tallis (M.S. in Chemical Oceanography at UC Santa Cruz) and M. Sanjayan (Ph.D in Biology). You can now add your name to the petition and learn more about the next steps toward brining diversity and information to conservation values.