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It all depends on the degree to which conservationism and animal welfare are morally important to you. Compared to the survival of the human race, for example.

This question is not a scientific one, there are tradeoffs to make when one moral good conflicts with other moral goods and everyone can have a different legitimate opinion on this question.



There are aspects of this issue that can be framed as a trade-off to be weighed up, but it's important to recognize how inextricably entwined the two things are, the fates of humans and of ecological diversity, and that science has a leading role in showing this.

Biodiverse ecosystems provide immense value in terms of services like water cycling, water and air purification, coastal and inland erosion prevention, they are treasurehouses of potential new foods, medicines, materials, biotechnologies. They are widely recognized as beneficial for human mental health and as important sources of inspiration for the human imagination. On top of that yes, you have many more purely moral consderations. Science can help discover and quantify those things in many ways.




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