Biodiversity conservation has been a pillar of the American environmental movement for decades. This course will critically evaluate the biodiversity conservation movement through examination of scientific and ethical debates as well as debates about conservation practices. The scientific debates start with the very definition of the term '91biodiversity'92 and extend through the measurement of biodiversity, the ecological factors that drive differences in biodiversity around the world, and whether we are actually entering the '93sixth mass extinction'94 in the history of Earth. The ethical debates involve the value of biodiversity and our obligations for its conservation in the context of competing ethical obligations. Our debates about conservation practices will focus especially on the problems created when conservation policy promotes the interests of wealthy conservationists at the expense of impoverished and disenfranchised peoples living in biodiverse regions. We will explore these debates and conflicts as well as innovative ideas to understand biodiversity and promote ethical and effective conservation through reading and discussion of texts from science, philosophy, and social science. This is a discussion-based course in which students prepare for most class meetings with readings from the academic literature. Satisfies the Interdisciplinary course requirement for Environmental Studies majors.