Ecological Inclusion: Unity among Animals | 197 place within nature, that they are subjects within a community of countless individuals Ecological inclusion is thus both a metaphysical and a practical response to the human interrelationship with nonhuman animals and is applicable to all life If a human has reverence for life, then that human has the potential to commit to an ecologically-imbued lifestyle, a respectful and compassionate interrelationship with all individual life forms, and the whole of the environment That interrelationship is thereby inclusive of the life of all individuals and the ecological integrity of the whole Thinking and Acting Inclusively Implicit within an ecologically inclusive worldview is the recognition that, no matter what perceptions of nature may be held by any human individual, there is an overarching oneness or unity within nature, and all life forms have an inherent worth or intrinsic value Such worth or value is an importance that cannot be quantified in any human sense as a degree of usefulness to humanity Further, all individuals can potentially contribute to the fecundity and well-being of the whole; appositely, their inherent worth or intrinsic value also relates to their potentiality as fecund and/or contributive individuals within the greater whole Every individual human and nonhuman animal, whether they be cognizant of it or not, is also in and of themselves ecologically significant to the integrity and maintenance of the whole Thus, all individuals should have the right to have their inherent worth or intrinsic value upheld, whilst having the ability to pursue their individual ecological and evolutionary paths, as long as that does not impinge on the biological and ecological integrity of the greater whole Yet, human lives and their interrelationships with nonhuman animals are more temporally and spatially complex than any prescription for exclusionary practices can possibly remedy Humans perceive nature and engage with nonhuman animals in countless ways, from the most caring and respectful of relationships to the most destructive and exclusionary forms of exploitation Yet, if humans acted in ways that were less exploitative and exclusionary, then survival rates for threatened individuals and habitats would improve Further, humans act in ways which equate individual nonhuman animals with their species, as environmentalists and conservation biologists when they stress the need to eradicate the inappropriately-labeled invasive species; such ideas justify continued exploitation and exclusion As ecological inclusion as an alternative worldview does not support any action that excludes or exploits nonhuman animals, then it should not automatically advocate such reductionist and mechanistic prescriptions as eradicating invasive species However, problems occur with some forms that become overly abundant and/or ecologically destructively In such cases, and after careful consideration of all possible alternatives, eliminating a life form from a certain locale, by death or relocation, might be justified if the survival of a particular life form is under direct and serious threat from the overabundance of another Other examples of ecosystemic reductionism include whether nonhuman animals should be utilized in invasive medical research or as food As human/nonhuman animal interrelationships are so extraordinarily complex,