The first issue to consider is what

The first issue to consider is what are the appropriate bearers of claims to environ- mental resources in the case of the ‘merely living’. There appear to be only three possibilities: individual specimens of a species; specific populations of a species; and the species as a whole. Let us examine these in turn.Arguably specimens of the merely living are too lacking in individuality for it to make much sense to attribute the rights to individuals of the species. This is because no individual specimens of these species possess particular ambitions or purposes, different from those of any other member of the species, which would make possible a meaningful moral differentiation between them. The killing of such specimens thus thwarts no plans or projects unique to the individual. The projects of individuals are interchangeable, and so it makes straightforward sense to say that the individuals themselves are interchangeable or fully replaceable. The giving of moral priority to the group over the individual is, in their case, fully justifiable. Their individual welfare interests remain, of course, but are impossible to disentangle fully from the welfare interests of the group.