So I feel quite confident that the pro-conservation attitude is an intermediary step. People need to care for animals → then they need to become aware of wild animal suffering → then they will favor intervention in nature.
Interventions promoting a pro-conservation attitude, arguably including the animal-rights movement, may be harmful even if that attitude is a necessary step to care about wild animals. If such interventions make a lot people care about preserving wilderness, but make only a few care about the welfare of wild animals to the extent of being willing to intervene in nature, they may still harm wild animals if these have negative lives.
If you only focus on the short term, taking such attitudes as fixed, then you can never hope to help very many of these animals.
I think one can help lots of soil animals without people caring about these. I estimate buying beef, and donating to GiveWell’s top charities decreases the living time of soil nematodes, mites, and springtails by 89.3 M and 237 M animal-years per $, which is good for my best guess that they have negative lives.
Interventions promoting a pro-conservation attitude, arguably including the animal-rights movement, may be harmful even if that attitude is a necessary step to care about wild animals. If such interventions make a lot people care about preserving wilderness, but make only a few care about the welfare of wild animals to the extent of being willing to intervene in nature, they may still harm wild animals if these have negative lives.
I think one can help lots of soil animals without people caring about these. I estimate buying beef, and donating to GiveWell’s top charities decreases the living time of soil nematodes, mites, and springtails by 89.3 M and 237 M animal-years per $, which is good for my best guess that they have negative lives.