“[He has often argued that we should protect biodiversity because of the human benefit from other lifeforms] but in the end, Wilson stressed, accelerating the exploration, understanding and conservation of nature is about much more than expanding knowledge or nature’s utility. It is an ethical imperative.
“He articulated his most fervent dream: ‘That somehow we have as a value, a human value, that we not destroy but we protect and study and understand and love the environment that was our birthplace. And the species that were our birth mates, and the ecosystems that are most able today as they were in the past to take care of themselves, giving us almost infinite benefits in maintaining the kind of lives, aesthetically and in terms of our health, that we could hope for.’
“ ‘We're hearing a lot of talk in the present political arena now of values,’ he said. “And I believe that we're on the edge of a new era, in which value is extended to saving the rest of nature. Knowing it, preserving it, studying it, understanding it, cherishing it, and holding on until we know what the hell we're doing.”
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