Wildlife consumption: cultural and environmental values in China and Southeast Asia

A common way of looking at environmental problems suggests that they are almost exclusively the result of bad things people do. Solutions to these problems begin with philosophers, conservation activists and policy advocates articulating a moral vision that explains what is wrong with people polluting an area or (over-)using a resource, and, especially in the case of nonhuman animals, what is wrong in even viewing them as a resource to be used for human ends. Environmentalists work to communicate a set of values, which provides the basis for rules and policies that will protect environmental goods by discouraging or preventing people from doing the bad things. In other words, they apply ethics. They attempt to make things right.