ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relationship between humans and nature with a view to determining whether these conservation assumptions are correct. It considers whether human-caused extinction is different in kind to other forms of extinction in order to discover whether the conservation assumption – that the current extinction event is undesirable – is coherent. P. Evernden's argument supports the contention that there is a dichotomy between humans and nature. A strictly non-interventionist position requires that humans are excluded from those tracts of land to be safeguarded. One possible way of avoiding some of the problems inherent in the strict noninterventionist position is the adoption of a modified non-interventionist position in which the cut-off point that legitimates human intervention is one of 'obvious harm' such as oil pollution. The 'thinking interventionist' position, though clearly pro-intervention, is characterised by the thoughtful interventionist, a concept that captures not only the rationality of the position but also the notion of care.
