Jakob von Uexküll

"Key Thinkers on the Environment" is a unique guide to environmental thinking through the ages. Joy A. Palmer Cooper and David E. Cooper, themselves distinguished authors on environmental matters, have assembled a team of expert contributors to summarize and analyse the thinking of diverse and stimulating figures from around the world and from ancient times to the present day. Among those is included my entry on Jakob von Uexküll's concept of Umwelt and its value for environmental thinking today. After a synthetic presentation of Uexküll's view of the Umwelt as a spontaneous production of the animal subject, the paper underlines the value of the Umwelt for biodiversity and the ethical implications of the preservation of the Umwelten af integral part of the animals' biodiversity.