Ethics, Religion and Biodiversity: Relations between Conservation and Cultural Values

The book is one of the results of a Symposium at the XVII Pacific Science Congress in Hawaii in 1991. After a extensive introduction by the editor, the book includes contributions from thirteen experts from such diverse regions as New Guinea, Canada, Nepal, Micronesia, the United States, Jamaica, Thailand, and China. Contributors include J. Ronald Engel, chair of the IUCN working group on Ethics, Culture, and Conservation, and environmental philosopher Holmes Rolston III, president of the International Society for Environmental Ethics. L. S. Hamilton offers a hopeful warning to scientists, resource managers that “science, technology, and inclusive economics can be useful means of reducing the rate of environmental degradation and concomitant loss of biodiversity. But the roots of the matter have to do with stewardship, equity, justice, and the inherent worth of living things.”