Purpose: The purpose of this lesson is for students to reflect on personal experiences with the wilderness and to evaluate their personal opinions and actions regarding wildlife protection.
Overview: This lesson examines ethical questions concerning the conservation of wild animals. It asks about human responsibility and duties toward animals, especially animals in the wild whose existence is threatened or endangered. Three Goldman Award Winners demonstrate their responsibility for saving and conserving rhinos, dolphins, and mountain gorillas.
Objectives: Students will be able to describe several different ways of valuing wildlife, and explain how those values can lead to the undertaking of actions that may help conserve wildlife and protect habitats.
Key Concepts: 
• People value and appreciate wildlife in many different ways. Some people value wildlife for the material benefits the animals can provide (use value), while others appreciate the simple fact that wild animals and habitats
exist in the world (existence value).
• The ethical principles of justice and duty depend on how people define the community in which they live. In environmental ethics, the idea of community is expanded to include beings other than humans.
• While we may live far from unfamiliar ecosystems, we must consider how our actions help or harm those spaces and species.
Video Profiles:
Michael Werikhe, Kenya, 1990
Michael Werikhe was an automobile mechanic who lived in Kenya. He dedicated himself to the survival of the rhinoceros. Fondly known to many as “The Rhino Man,” he walked thousands of miles on several continents to educate people around the world about the plight of rhinos. Werikhe’s approach is creative and his goal straightforward: To help save the animal he views as the symbol of the environment, he undertakes long walks. On these “rhino walks,” Werikhe educates the people who join him and raises funds for rhino conservation programs.
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Eugene Rutagarama, Rwanda, 2001
Eugene Rutagarama, a Rwandan biologist, dedicated his life to protecting a close relative of humans: the gorilla. In the 1990s, ethnic strife between two tribal groups, the Tutsi and the Hutu, tore through Rwanda. The human suffering was incalculable. But a group of humanity’s most endangered relatives—mountain gorillas—could also have been victims of the violence. Thanks to Eugene Rutagarama, the fragile mountain gorilla population survived the war.
Since the end of the war, Rutagarama has generated a plan that led to the revival of the Wildlife Agency, ensuring that the protected areas of mountain gorilla habitat were kept safe. Risking his life, he repeatedly traveled to hostile territories to deliver funds and supplies to park rangers so they could continue their work. Today, Rutagarama works for the International Gorilla Conservation Program, rebuilding ecotourism, monitoring the mountain gorillas, and building relationships with the communities near the parks.
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Samuel LaBudde, United States, 1991
Tuna and dolphins swim together. When the fishing industry catches tuna, which is a very valuable commodity, they also kill the accompanying dolphins. When biologist Sam LaBudde learned this, he managed to get hired as a cook on a Panamanian fishing boat. Once aboard, he secretly videotaped the dolphin slaughter. LaBudde’s footage provided the first graphic evidence that tuna fishers were indiscriminately killing dolphins.
LaBudde testified before the U.S. Congress, and the footage was shown on national television, provoking outrage across the country. In the months that followed, LaBudde worked with the Earth Island Institute to launch the most successful consumer boycott in U.S. history. By spring of 1990, the three major tuna brands agreed to process only dolphin-safe tuna, resulting in a 95 percent reduction of dolphin kills.
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