Valuing Biodiversity
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Valuing biodiversity: biology, economics, ethics, and politics, is an informal discussion group hosted by the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute during Spring Semester 2007. It meets Wednesday afternoons at 3:30pm in the Institute's library (CLAS 301). Discussions will be motivated by readings associated with each topic, and the list of topics, the sequence of topics, and the times when they will be discussed will evolve according to the interests of those participating in the group.

In May, 2006 I organized a 1 1/2 day symposium in association with the annual meetings of the American Institute of Biological Sciences: Biodiversity: The Interplay of Science, Valuation, and Policy. Presentations in that meeting focused heavily on ecosystem services and economics. I hope this discussion group will explore a broader range of issues related to valuing biodiversity, for example:

• What values are threatened by loss of biodiversity?

• Are economic approaches to valuation sufficient to encapsulate those values?

• What kinds of values associated with biodiversity are influential in setting public policy?

• What role does scientific knowledge play in setting biodiversity policy, and what role should it play?

I am grateful to the Humanities Institute for providing the facilities for these discussions. The Humanities Institute welcomes multidisciplinary perspectives-including the social sciences, natural sciences, and the humanities. If you are interested in participating in the discussion group, please contact me. I would like to keep the number of participants small so that we can have substantive discussions, but I don't want to exclude anyone who would like to participate.

Kent Holsinger (kent.holsinger@uconn.edu)