🚀 go-pugleaf

jim heath <jh@IINET.NET.AU> wrote:


>As you might guess, I've had no trouble finding
>arguments in *favour* of biodiversity. But are there
>professional voices urging caution? For some fundamental
>biological reasons? (Maybe not -- I just need to make
>sure I'm not missing something.)

See if you can find Stephen Budiansky's book Nature's Keepers (1995)
(Weidenfeld and Nicholson). He takes a fairly sceptical look at some
of the arguments put forward by such advocates of preserving
biodiversity as E.O. Wilson, particularly some of the estimates of
species loss rates (he comments on how these estimates seem to change
depending on whether Wilson is talking to a professional ecologist or
a journalist). Some of the ecology in the book is a bit dodgy, but I
thought he said some very sensible things.

Rob Knell
Rob Knell
Dept. Zoology, University of the Witwatersrand, Jo'burg.