The Value of Life is an exploration of the actual and perceived importance of biological diversity for human beings and society. Stephen R. Kellert identifies ten basic values, which he describes as biologically based, inherent human tendencies that are greatly influenced and moderated by culture, learning, and experience. Drawing on 20 years of original research, he considers: the universal basis for how humans value nature - differences in those values by gender, age, ethnicity, occupation, and geographic location - how environment-related activities affect values - variation in values relating to different species - how vlaues vary across cultures - policy and management implications Throughout the book, Kellert argues that the preservation of biodiversity is fundamentally linked to human well-being in the largest sense as he illustrates the importance of biological diversity to the human sociocultural and psychological condition. Debate on the threat to humanity posed by the massive and widespread loss of biological diversity has largely emphasized economic and ecological consequences. In The Value of Life, a leading social scientist adds a critical new dimension. Stephen R. Kellert explores the actual and perceived importance of biological diversity for humankind's physical, emotional, intellectual, and even spiritual well-being. Kellert identifies ten basic values, which he describes as biologically based, inherent human tendencies that are greatly influenced and moderated by culture, learning, and experience. Throughout, Kellert argues that the preservation of biodiversity is fundamentally linked to human well-being as he illustrates the importance of biological diversity to the human sociocultural and psychological condition. His discussion provides the reader with a deeper understanding of how humans depend on a vast matrix of affiliations with other living things to achieve lives rich in meaning and value. Stephen R. Kellert was the Tweedy/Ordway Professor of Social Ecology at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and author of numerous books including, The Biophilia Hypothesis (coedited with E. O. Wilson, 1993), The Value of Life: Biological Diversity and Human Society (1996), Kinship to Mastery: Biophilia in Human Evolution and Development (1997), T he Good in Nature and Humanity: Connecting Science, Religion, and Spirituality with the Natural World (coedited with T. Farnham, 2002), and Children and Nature: Psychological, Sociocultural, and Evolutionary Investigation s (coedited with P. H. Kahn, 2002). The Value of Life Biological Diversity and Human Society By Stephen R. Kellert ISLAND PRESS Copyright © 1996 Island Press All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-55963-318-5 Contents Title Page, Copyright Page, Dedication, Table of Figures, ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, PROLOGUE, Part One - Universals, CHAPTER 1 - Introduction, CHAPTER 2 - Values, Part Two - Variations, CHAPTER 3 - American Society, CHAPTER 4 - Activities, CHAPTER 5 - Species, CHAPTER 6 - Culture, Part Three - Applications, CHAPTER 7 - Endangered Species, CHAPTER 8 - Conserving Biological Diversity, CHAPTER 9 - Education and Ethics, NOTES, INDEX, CHAPTER 1 Introduction THIS BOOK is about the value of living diversity—how these values are integral to what it means to be fully human, yet how they are increasingly threatened by a massive hemorrhaging of life on earth. Although the connection between these issues has become clearer to me of late, this recognition has emerged only after years of researching how people value living diversity: emotionally, intellectually, and materially. I first became interested in the issue of how people value nature and wildlife two decades ago. From my innocent perch of the time, I was primarily concerned with the problem of how the effective management of wildlife often seemed less a problem of manipulating animals and their habitats than managing our own species' often callous and destructive disregard for much of the natural world. This perspective had certainly not originated with me. Aldo Leopold, one of the wildlife profession's pioneering ecologists, had suggested more than a half century before: "The problem of [wildlife] is not how we shall handle the [animals].... The real problem is ... human management. Wildlife management is comparatively easy; human management difficult." I was struck, nonetheless, by how little systematic research had been done over the intervening years to explore the human/animal/nature relationship. Fortunately, during this early stage in my career, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) also became interested in American values and perceptions of wildlife and its conservation. The FWS seemed motivated by increasing concern about what appeared to be new trends in American relationships to wildlife—particularly attitudes that challenged many of the service's traditional emphases on managing wildlife us