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While I get where you're coming from and agree to some extent, the cost of introducing new species is often the eradication of native species that can't compete
by decimalenough 2y ago
While I get where you're coming from and agree to some extent, the cost of introducing new species is often the eradication of native species that can't compete. The moral argument is that those species deserve to be protected because they're valuable as is, while the utilitarian argument is that if native species die, we're losing access to genetic diversity that could be exploited now or in the future for medical treatments, innovations in science, etc.
- mjburgess 2y agoThey're being replaced by ecologies useful to humans, here a variety of crops and the like. I'm unconvinced that the land should exist for some specific species of mice and birds, but not for us. All I really hear is that some very small group of aesthetically-minded human apes are precious about one more variety of bird, against the interest of very many other human apes that need to eat. If the new ecology were really extremely desolate, we might weigh up this a little differently, sure. But the article's entire analysis is that these new ecologies are genuinely "natural" in the sense of self-sustaining, and varied, and so on.
- treyd 2y agoThe GP gave a good reason that directly explains why biodiversity is useful to humans: > we're losing access to genetic diversity that could be exploited now or in the future for medical treatments, innovations in science, etc.