ABSTRACT
At the conclusion of a long book * tracing the processes by which the diversity plant and animal species has developed and the causes that n great extinction, the entomologist Edward O. Wilson undertakes to undertakes to explain why biodiversity is valuable why it is important not to accelerate the natural process of extinction. Many other species provide us with thing of use such as food-stuffs and medicine, and there is likely to be a wealth of such resource yet to be discovered. Ecosystems provide the conditions for human life, and are fragile. But these ‘service’ are not the whole story. We need to understand the whole evolutionary history in which we evolved as a species in order to understand ourselves.
