There was a Reddit thread about the complete extinction of the giant Chinese paddlefish (none found in the wild, none exist in captivity, and no living tissue samples to clone) and these two comments really stuck out to me on why species conservation truly matters in a big picture sense:
Jesus. This planet is the only place in the known universe to host life. Every species gone is a loss for the whole universe. You’d think people would do better to protect the extremely limited and precious resource that life is.
PsalmOfTheAsylum
It’s not like we can even leave this planet, even if we found a distant place that could host compatible life. We are monsters for creating, allowing and encouraging the death of a planet for something as ultimately worthless as money.
This is our habitat. What kind of self destructive virus are we that we destroy our host so willingly?
pffftttwut