Sheltering species makes no sense to the short-term bottom line, but the huge diversity of nature, in addition to being fascinating and beautiful and sacred, is also a most amazing resilience mechanism. The complex interactions among the critters in an ecosystem allow the living community to adjust to change. A shortage or excess of a nutrient is corrected as some populations rise while other sink. Some species can weather cold, some do well in drought, some recover after fire, so the community can rebuild after disasters. Most important, the genes carried in millions of species, invented and tested over billions of years of planetary variability, form the information base for nature's long-term resilience response, which is evolution.
Evolution is innovation.
It is new technology. Wiping out species is equivalent to wiping out libraries and data bases and scientific research. So as we pay billions of dollars to go back and fix our mind-boggling accumulation of computer code, and as we cope with whatever breaks down on the New Year's Eve after next, maybe we could make some useful resolutions about treasuring resilience.