ABSTRACT
Are any of the core values which form the basis of the reports from the United Nations or the Swedish National Environment Protection Board, or which are embraced by the advocates of the ethic of sustainable development, in any sense contestable or controversial? What is clear is that there exists another important group of environmentalists, usually called 'preservationists'.1 David Ehrenfeld maintains, for example, that There is no true protection for Nature within the humanist system - the very idea is a contradiction in terms' (Ehrenfeld, 1978, p. 202). He means that it is a contradiction because how could such humanist values and attitudes constitute a solution to the problems that they themselves have created? It is the anthropocentric way of looking at nature which ultimately is the cause of our environmental problems. We find ourselves in the situation we are because we have looked upon nature merely as a resource which we can utilize for our own ends.
