Noel Michele Holbrook is Professor of Biology and Charles Bullard Professor of Forestry, Department of Organismic and
Evolutionary Biology, at Harvard. James Hanken is the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology, Curator in Herpetology, and Director of
the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University.
Professor Holbrook speaks from the perspective of an academic and plant physiologist, comparing "the loss of biological
diversity and the degradation of habitats" to the loss of books from Widener library. She asks us to consider that all "that can never
be retrieved will be lost if we allow so much destruction to continue."
Professor Hanken targets his remarks to people in the audience who don't find "conserving biological diversity for
diversity's sake a sufficient or satisfactory justification for the extensive and frequently expensive steps that are often required to
achieve conservations." He emphasizes that the same factors that threaten and benefit biological diversity also threaten and benefit
human society. Professor Hanken cites two examples of this point. The first example is the series of hurricanes that occurred in the
western Caribbean and southeastern United States, especially on the island of Hispaniola. This natural disaster exacerbated pre-existing
environmental degradation (specifically, deforestation that left the forests denuded), causing severe mudslides and resulting in 3,000
deaths and 300,000 displaced people. Professor Hanken also describes the way in which habitat destruction in Haiti is both causing the
decline of amphibian species and is "also leaving the country susceptible for human tragedy on a massive scale." His final words
emphasize the connection between biodiversity and human welfare, indicating that steps that are "required to conserve or save biological
diversity will provide tangible and important benefits to human society, and we need not think of them as a compromise."
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