An article at a UC Berkeley website reports that “We are currently losing species hundreds or thousands of times faster than normal background extinction rates. If this continues, Earth’s biodiversity will plummet.” And biodiversity is a big deal, supporting the healthy functioning of the Earth. Animals, plants, bacteria, fungi, bryophytes – all these lives are interrelated, creating complex systems that keep the Earth going. The way the survival of every species is related to the well-being of the rest makes ecosystems resemble very complicated jenga games. You can remove a few pieces and the structure still stands, but it gets progressively more unstable. It could reach a tipping point in which further species loss brings whole ecosystems down.

Slowing the rates of extinction and leaving ecosystems in greater health will depend on us. Among the things we can do is to recognize which species are in trouble and take actions to conserve them. How do we encourage those things? How do we get enough people to care what happens so that they help fund conservation efforts and agree to limit some of the extraction and development so that species can survive?

An important insight from Senegalese conservationist Baba Dioum is:

“In the end we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.”

We conserve what we love. And it is easier for us to love some species than others. Part of our biological inheritance is that we are drawn to such things as big, expressive eyes, soft sounds and soft touch. And so we want to pick up and cuddle babies, we make cooing noises back to them and describe them as cute. (I don’t want to reduce the love of babies and children solely to genetic wiring, but the wiring helps.) And that response is usually extended at least a little toward cute puppies and kittens. And to baby tigers and bears, wolves and other furry, expressive animals.

Animals with strange faces, fixed expressions, and unusual body forms don’t pull us in so much, unless they are beautiful to look at or hear. A Monarch butterfly doesn’t have a face a human mother would love, but its beautiful wings and flight win our affection. Bird faces are less expressive than those of puppies, but many of us associate wings and flight with such spiritually uplifting things as heaven and angels. And there’s the beauty of their feathers and songs as well.

Reptiles and amphibians are a harder sell. For most people, they are among the less-charismatic animals to worry about and go out of our way to protect. In a world of soft and furry animals like ocelots and wolves with their expressive faces, can turtles or frogs pull at our hearts? Could the handsome colors and patterns of a Louisiana Pinesnake have a place in our affections alongside the lovely feathers of a Golden-cheeked Warbler? Could the nighttime calls of a Gray Treefrog have a place alongside the songs of Bewick’s Wren? For me, the answers are all “yes.” Part of the wonder of the natural world, and a key to its magic, is the diversity of forms, sounds, colors, and lives. Everything belongs. It’s the natural world’s equivalent of the way some of us talk about human inclusion: “Y’all means all.”

It is important to consider why all of this matters, and why “y’all” should be interpreted so broadly. Everything matters because of that ecosystem jenga game mentioned earlier. And what about the tangible benefits that many species provide for us?

We are accustomed to environmentalists citing the many ecosystem services that various species provide, including cleansing the water and air, providing food, controlling agricultural pests and pollinating crops, breaking down the tissues of things after they die and returning nutrients to the soil, making new medicines possible, and so on. I’m grateful for all those ecosystem services – glad that the Earth and all those living things take care of us. The problem is when we take and do not give back, when we place ourselves at the center of everything. Believing that everything revolves around us is part of how the Earth got into so much trouble. We matter; humans are a part of all that glorious biodiversity, but the rest of the Earth matters, too, even when we don’t seem to get anything out of it.

The old story tells us that the Earth was given to us to use as we wish. That story led most of us into a relationship with the world in which we are the shopper and the Earth is the store as well as the sewer. We are the owners and the planet is our house, to be remade as we would like it. But there are other stories, other wisdom. We might find truth in the ones saying that all those other lives are our brothers and sisters, that we are all related such that when we treat others with respect and affection, we get a great deal in return. In that story, told by many Indigenous cultures, the world operates based on reciprocity and love, and when that breaks down, things fall apart. You can find a beautiful exploration of those ideas in Robin Wall Kimmerer’s recent book, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World.

Those beloved, despised, ignored reptiles and amphibians provide beauty, pest control, medicines, and cultural meaning – and regardless of what they provide for us they have value. They are members and sometimes key players in communities of plants and animals. The great ecologist Aldo Leopold taught us that none of the members of ecosystems can be discarded:

“If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not. If the biota, in the course of aeons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts?” – Aldo Leopold, Round River

For those who see the world through a spiritual or religious lens, the quote carries the same wisdom. It changes only how we name the creator; substitute “God” or “Great Spirit” for “biota,” and discarding the parts still seems foolish and arrogant.

So if we conserve what we love, and we love what we understand, how do we bring about that understanding? It’s through experience and information, the teaching that Dioum mentioned. The more time I spend with rattlesnakes, for example, the more I am able to notice how they move through the world without malice (though their bite is dangerous if threatened), but rather with curiosity and skill. We increasingly read researchers’ accounts of problem-solving ability and maternal care. In Tracks and Shadows, herpetologist Harry Greene reports on observations of baby rattlesnakes staying with their mother, basking together, and retreating behind her if disturbed. Then, after their first shed skin, the babies disperse and mother finally has a chance to hunt for a meal (Pp.165-166). With information such as this together with my own field experience, I have plenty of respect for and caution around these animals, and also considerable affection.

It is not necessary to seek encounters with rattlesnakes or read extensively about them in order to support their continued existence. But some level of familiarity, some acquaintance with wildlife and nature is needed. The more we understand the lives around us and the places they depend on, perhaps the more we will understand the importance of the whole thing. We need to hear the stories and hopefully have firsthand experience with some of the hard-to-love, non-charismatic wildlife, showing us that they, too, have some of the qualities that stir our compassion and empathy.