Humanity owes a moral responsibility to future generations  Human moral responsibility to future generations: Species extinction is an irrevocable occurrence. Outside of the film 'Jurassic Park', extinct species cannot be summoned back from the grave once human action has put them there. This means that when a current generation makes the decision not to protect an endangered species and thus allows human action to drive it to extinction, this denies future generations the ability to make up their own minds about the pros and cons of the survival of that endangered species, especially considering that they might want that species to exist for the aforementioned scientific, medical, aesthetic or moral reasons. For example, there is a great modern-day interest in the dodo species of bird which was hunted to extinction in Mauritius in the 17th Century. [1] The opinion of many in the modern world today is one of regret at the bird's extinction and that it should have been protected, but a lack of consideration of the wishes of future generations in the 17th Century has meant that the humans of the 21st Century are denied the ability to decide on the value of this species themselves. Because we place a moral value on the ability of humans to make decisions (as we consider it to be a good thing when we ourselves have this ability) we should recognise that the possibly differing opinions of future generations should constrain our choices somewhat, and we should protect endangered species so that future generations can decide for themselves regarding their value.  [1] BBC News “Dodo skeleton find in Mauritius”. BBC News. 24 June 2006.