This article is intended as a synthesis of the ideas, previously presented by the author, on the conservation of biodiversity as well as new proposals, heretofore unpublished. The author focusses on the central theme that in each society the ideas held about the use and the conservation of biodiversity and, in more general terms, about nature are an integral part of the culture of that society, and as such cannot be separated from its ethical and aesthetic values, or from its socio-economic reality.
