Wildlife Conservation Approaches - Unit 12

C1 Advanced · Cross Text Multiple Matching · Ready for C1 Advanced 4th Edition Workbook, Macmillan Education

You are going to read four extracts from articles in which conservationists discuss dilemmas they face. For questions 1–4, choose from the conservationists A–D. The conservationists may be chosen more than once.

Akwasi Yakubu

The problem with conservation is that it tends to focus on those species that humans consider important, typically because they’re either useful or cute. Thus, people rightly decry the decimation of the bee population, justifying their anger by saying that bees produce honey for us, or they pollinate flowers for us, rather than because they deserve to live for their own sake. Similarly, they agonise over the best ways to protect all those lovely pandas, elephants and butterflies from harm and suffering, but they couldn’t care less about less photogenic creatures: vultures, mosquitoes, slugs, bacteria, weeds and so on. They presumptuously assign rights to certain species but not others, based on arbitrary and questionable assumptions about which organisms can think and suffer and which simply exist. My view, in contrast, is that the whole of nature is of equal value and deserves equal protection. As humans, we have no right to decide which species are more worthy than others.

Huang Fenfang

When deciding on conservation priorities, the fairest approach is to maximise the benefits and minimise the pain of all the parties involved, be they humans or animals. Animal suffering must be taken into account when making decisions, balanced against the needs of humans to make a reasonable living and enjoy life. According to this view, hunting animals for pleasure is never justifiable, as their pain far outweighs the benefit. However, culling animals is often morally right, no matter how unpleasant it seems. For example, by the late 1960s, the elephant population of Tsavo National Park in Kenya had grown far too high for the habitat to sustain. Drought struck in 1971, causing unimaginable suffering throughout the population, and around 6,000 elephants died. Had that population been controlled through humane culling, much of that suffering could have been avoided.

Branko Mladenović

I became a conservationist because I believe passionately in animal rights. As far as I’m concerned, if an animal can feel pain and has desires for the future, then it deserves the same moral rights as humans. All human activity that impinges on those rights, whether it involves killing them, encroaching on their habitats or otherwise interfering with their way of life, is morally unacceptable. That’s not to say that all human activity is inherently bad, of course; I see no reason why humans and animals can’t co-exist harmoniously. As humans, we have neither the right nor the obligation to ‘manage’ wildlife – even if that management seems superficially designed with the animals’ best interests in mind. Instead, the best thing we can do for animals is leave them well alone to get on with their lives.

Sheila Campbell

My approach to nature conservation is built on the assumption that the natural world is a resource for humans to exploit, by which I mean all of humankind, including future generations. This human-centric approach is often misunderstood as advocating a free-for-all to plunder nature, whereas in fact the reverse is true: it explains why conservation is so vital. For example, while one hunter might enjoy shooting an elephant, hundreds of people would get pleasure over a much longer period of time from seeing that same elephant in the wild, which therefore makes it imperative to eradicate or at least severely restrict hunting of these animals. Similarly, whereas one business might profit from clearing a rainforest to plant cash crops, if the rainforest contained plants that could instead have been used to make powerful medicines, the long-term loss to humankind would far outweigh that benefit. Effective management of the natural world therefore requires strongly enforced policies to ensure all humans gain the maximum benefit from this scarce resource.

Which conservationist disagrees with the other three about whether animals have rights?

Which conservationist seems to share conservationist C’s opinion about which species should have rights?

Which conservationist disagrees with the other three about whether humans should protect animals?

Which conservationist would disagree most strongly with conservationist B’s conclusion about elephants?

Wildlife Conservation Approaches

Four wildlife conservationists outline their approaches to the dilemmas they face in their work.

Available as a free printable PDF worksheet with an optional answer key.

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