MOTION #62: THIS HOUSE BELIEVES
THAT ENDANGERED SPECIES SHOULD BE PROTECTED
An 'endangered species' is a population of organisms (either plant or
animal) which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in
numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or through being directly
killed by other species (including humans). Many nations have laws offering
protection to conservation relevant species: for example, forbidding hunting,
restricting land development or creating preserves. 'Biodiversity' means the
variety of bacteria, plants, and animals that live on our planet. This includes
the unique behavioural patterns and activities of each species. Biodiversity is
an ecological concept discussed in many scientific circles. Many debates about
biodiversity will ultimately boil down to how important this diversity is,
either for its own sake, or for some specific human benefits.
Pros
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Cons
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Protecting endangered species protects the interests of
humans. Protecting endangered species helps protect humans:
Humans actually benefit in a large number of ways from the protection of
endangered species and thus continuing biodiversity. Firstly, the diversity
of life and living systems is considered by many scientists to be a necessary
condition for human development. We live in a world built on a carefully
balanced ecosystem in which all species play a role, and the removal of
species from this can cause negative consequences for the whole ecosystem,
including humans. There is also the potential for almost any species to hold
currently-unknown future benefits to humans through products they could
provide. One example of this is the scrub mint, an endangered plant species
which has been found to contain an anti-fungal agent and a natural
insecticide, and thus holds great potential for use that benefits humans.
Endangered species have also been known to hold the key to medical
breakthroughs which save human lives.
One example of this is the Pacific yew (a tree species) which became
the source of taxol, one of the most potent anticancer compounds ever
discovered. Biodiversity also helps protect humans in that different species'
differing reactions to ecological problems may in fact act as a kind of
'early warning' system of developing problems which may one day negatively
affect people. This was the case with the (now banned)
dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) pesticide, as the deterioration of the
bald eagle and the peregrine falcon through their exposure to DDT in fact
alerted humans to the potential health hazards of this pesticide, not just to
animals but also to humans. Thus the preservation of endangered species helps
to protect humans, as this means plants and animals continue to play their
specific role in the world's ecosystem which humans rely on, can act as an
'early warning' for problems which may affect humans, and may hold the key to
scientific and medical breakthroughs which can greatly benefit humanity. Al
this could be lost through the careless extinction of plant and animal
species.
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This argument fails to take into account the costs of
protecting endangered species and weigh them against the potential harms of
them becoming extinct. In a world where only 5% of plant species have been
surveyed for their potential medicinal value, this means protecting the
survival of the other 95% purely for the potential value that only a fraction
of them may possess. All of this means denying development human development
now, by not opening areas up for agriculture or not constructing housing.
These are very real costs which impact upon peoples' lives, and may even
outweigh those scientific and medical advances which may or may not be found
in currently endangered species.
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Aesthetics. An environment with a great diversity of plant and animal species in it
can act as a source for art and entertainment, enriching the lives of humans.
Thus the preservation of endangered species is an important part of ensuring
this diversity continues to exist so people and enjoy and be inspired by the
many varied kinds of life on this earth. A good example of this is the
re-introduction of the grey wolf into Yellowstone Park in the United States
(where it had previously become extinct due to human action), which added to
the biodiversity of the region and caused a greater influx of tourists into
the park. People enjoy being surrounded by different kinds of nature, and so
protecting endangered species is an important part of protecting human
enjoyment.
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The problem with this argument is that it prioritizes
the enjoyment of some individuals over others with no real justification. The
grey wolf, for example, went extinct in the Yellowstone region in the first
place because humans considered it a pest and a threat to livestock and so
hunted it to extinction. Clearly these people didn't enjoy the 'diversity'
the grey wolf provided. We don't usually give something the force of law
regarding animals just because some people enjoy it. For example, the UK has
now banned fox hunting even though a great many people found it to be a
source of pleasure and recreation. If everyone desired the protection of all
endangered species, there would be no need for this law, but the fact that a
law is needed to restrain human action shows that not everyone 'enjoys' this
biodiversity in the same way.
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Humanity bears a moral responsibility to other species. Human moral responsibility to other species: Humans
are unique and unprecedented in life on earth in that their intelligence and
sentience far surpasses that of any other species ever known to have existed.
Humans are not simply forced to kill or ignore other species by instinct
alone, as other species are, but rather can make a variety of choices based
not only on information but on moral grounds. Thus with our greater power
comes a greater responsibility to act in a moral fashion, and not simply to
prioritize our own human good over that of other species. The ability of
animal species, for example, to feel pain and suffering is something we
should consider and try to avoid, as we recognise that pain is bad for
ourselves, and thus must be bad for animals as well. Similarly if we believe
our own survival is a good thing, we should recognise that the survival of
other species is also a moral good, and act accordingly to protect endangered
species.
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Superior human intellect and sentience only means that
we should make sure we consider the moral ramifications of our actions, not
that we should take any particular action as a result. It is entirely in
keeping with this for us to conclude that human life and enjoyment are more
important than animal life and species survival, and so for us to decide not
to protect endangered species when this (as it by definition always will)
infringes upon human benefits and enjoyment.
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Humanity owes a moral responsibility to future
generations. Human moral responsibility to
future generations: Species extinction is an irrevocable occurrence. Outside
of the film 'Jurassic Park', extinct species cannot be summoned back from the
grave once human action has put them there. This means that when a current
generation makes the decision not to protect an endangered species and thus
allows human action to drive it to extinction, this denies future generations
the ability to make up their own minds about the pros and cons of the
survival of that endangered species, especially considering that they might
want that species to exist for the aforementioned scientific, medical,
aesthetic or moral reasons. For example, there is a great modern-day interest
in the dodo species of bird which was hunted to extinction in Mauritius in
the 17th Century. The opinion of many in the modern world today is one of
regret at the bird's extinction and that it should have been protected, but a
lack of consideration of the wishes of future generations in the 17th Century
has meant that the humans of the 21st Century are denied the ability to
decide on the value of this species themselves. Because we place a moral
value on the ability of humans to make decisions (as we consider it to be a
good thing when we ourselves have this ability) we should recognise that the
possibly differing opinions of future generations should constrain our
choices somewhat, and we should protect endangered species so that future
generations can decide for themselves regarding their value.
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By this argument, no human generation could ever decide
that protecting a species is more trouble than its worth and so let it become
extinct, as there would always be the theoretical possibility of a future
generation that might regret this choice. Every choice we make as a
generation constrains and widens the choices available to future generations.
If we protect endangered species and therefore limit agricultural and housing
land (to protect their environments) we deny future generations more
plentiful food supplies and better housing. We may even deny the existence of
more humans in the future by not having enough food to feed a population
which could grow faster if the food supply was greater. We cannot allow the
remote possibility of future regret to cause us to take actions which a great
many people will 'regret' in the present.
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These possible harms can be outweighed by the gains we
make as humanity from protecting these species. It is important to note that
the way we benefit from protecting endangered species extends benefits not
just to the current generation but to future generations in terms of the
preservation of biodiversity for scientific and aesthetic reasons. By contrast,
allowing farmers to hunt to extinction species which are a threat to their
livestock is only a short-term gain which applies almost exclusively to the
farmers themselves and not to humanity as a whole.
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Protecting endangered species can harm human communities. Protecting endangered species can harm humans:
Protecting endangered species by definition means restricting activity that
humans would otherwise want to do, be it by turning woodland into farmland,
turning meadows into housing developments, or by preventing us from
eliminating 'pest' species which kill livestock or damage crops. For example,
the reintroduction of the grey wolf into Yellowstone Park has increased once
more the risk to livestock in the region and caused economic harms to
ranchers there. Some of these species may even pose a threat to human lives,
which may have been why they were hunted to extinction in the first place. In
any case, less agricultural land and less land for housing can only mean
higher food and housing costs (due to their decreased supplies in the face of
a rising human population) for people, which has a detrimental impact upon
human life.
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This is argument for the reform of these laws, not
against the laws themselves. Laws could also be introduced, for example, to
require loggers to allow a certain percentage of their trees to reach the
appropriate age for woodpecker nesting, or better review panels created to
consider removing the 'endangered' label when it is no longer appropriate.
These laws can shift as we see incentives shifting in order to ensure that
good behaviour in incentivized overall.
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The term "endangered" is inconsistently
applied. The practical difficulties of
the 'endangered' status: The complications which have grown up surrounding
the 'endangered' status given to some species are in themselves a good reason
to do away with this cumbersome and harmful practice. It should firstly be
noted that it can be incredibly difficult to get species removed from the
'protected' lists even once they have been added even when their numbers show
they are no longer in jeopardy. The grey wolf again serves as a good example;
it is considered to be 'endangered' (and thus protected) in the United
States, as there are only 3,700 such wolves in the lower 48 States today,
despite the fact that an estimated 58,000 grey wolves live in the wild in
Alaska and Canada. This is clearly an example of a misapplication of the
'endangered' label but which is incredibly difficult to revoke once it has
been given, due to pressure from ecological groups and the media.
The sort of laws used to 'protect' endangered species
may even incentivize the exact opposite kind of behaviour on the part of
landowners. When, for example, a farmer finds on his land an animal from an
endangered species, and the law thus requires him to make significant changes
to his farming practices to protect the creature, this imposes a significant
economic cost on him. This means that that farmer may have a large economic
incentive to simply dispose of the creature and hide the evidence of its
presence, when in the absence of the law the farmer might not take any steps
to intentionally exterminate all examples of that endangered species on his
land. Economists writing in the Journal of Law and Economics found an example
of similarly perverse incentives provided by endangered species protection
law amongst logging companies in the United States. When faced with a
protected species of woodpecker which preferred to nest in trees at least 70
years old, and which when found, the law required timber owners not to
harvest wood within a large area around that woodpecker's nest, loggers
simply responded by harvesting more trees in areas where these woodpeckers
might appear and by intentionally harvesting tees at age 40 instead of waiting
for them to mature to 70 and thus becoming potential habitats for the
woodpeckers. This resulted in even less available habitat for the woodpeckers
than before the protection laws were passed. This example helps to further
illustrate how 'protecting' endangered species requires cumbersome
legislation that is prone to mistakes, difficult to retract and may
incentivize even more harmful behaviour towards these species than if the
laws did not exist.
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Other species may allow species other than themselves
to die out, but they fail to do this because they act purely based on
instinct and their instincts do not dictate to them to save other species.
Humans, however, are capable of acting for a far greater number of reasons
and after more consideration. For example humans are capable of empathy with
other species and understanding that their pain and suffering mirrors our
own, and thus that we should prevent it on moral grounds. What makes humans
special is that they are more thoughtful than any other animal, and thus the
moral standards for our behaviour are much higher.
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Species extinction is an inevitable process. Species extinction is a part of the natural world:
Within evolution species naturally go arise and later become extinct as they
struggle to adapt to changing environments and competition with other
species. This be regarded as a part of the 'survival of the fittest' which
drives evolution. Most extinctions that have occurred did so naturally and
without human intervention. It is, for example, estimated that 99.9% of all
species that have ever lived are now extinct, and humans have existed at the
same time as only a fraction of these species. Therefore it cannot be claimed
that species going extinct will somehow upset the delicate natural balance or
destroy ecosystems. Ecologists and conservationists have in fact struggled to
demonstrate the increased material benefits to humans of 'intact' wild
systems over man-made ones such as farms and urban environments, which many
species simply adapt to. Therefore any claims that humans causing the
extinction of other species are somehow acting 'un-naturally' or 'immorally'
or that they are risking ecological collapse as a consequence are mistaken,
as they fail to understand that extinction occurs as a natural fact and that
ecosystems adapt accordingly. No other species acts to prevent species
besides itself from becoming extinct, and therefore again allowing another
species to die out is in no way 'un-natural.'
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This argument fails to note that states restrict human
behaviour towards animals with the aim of protecting animals in many
situations, not just that of 'endangered species'. For example the
aforementioned fox hunting ban, which outlawed hunting foxes with dogs as it
was deemed excessively 'cruel' to the animal, even though many people enjoyed
the practice.[1] This is done not only because humans are able to hold
themselves to a higher moral standard than animals but also because animal
suffering tends to produce a negative emotional response in many humans (such
as amongst those who disliked the suffering of foxes in hunts and pushed for
the ban), and thus we prevent human suffering by preventing animal suffering.
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Human rights trump those of lower animals. Why human rights always trump animal rights: It has already
been established that laws protecting endangered species cause harm to humans
by denying them the opportunity to engage in behaviour they would otherwise
desire to do. The problem with this is that it elevates 'animal rights' to an
equal plane with human rights and therefore restricts human life and
happiness. This is wrong as humans enjoy superior mental faculties to animals
and also have greater sentience, meaning that humans are aware of their pain,
suffering and the opportunities denied to them (for example through laws
restricting land development) in a way in which animals are not. As a
consequence, we should cause humans to have less happiness in life in order
to protect the lives of 'endangered species', as animals' lives, 'happiness'
and suffering are less meaningful than that of humans.
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