Who Speaks for Wolf? Not Project WILD.

Project WILD, a Canadian elementary school curriculum supplement about wildlife and the environment, is seriously flawed in that it presents a human-centered view of the world while purporting to be unbiased. This anthropocentric perspective, in which humans are alienated from the environment and in control of nature by technological means, is in sharp contrast to the biocentric view, which emphasizes the relationships among all living things, including humans. Evidence of Project WILD's anthropocentric bias includes: (1) a preponderance of photographs of humans, human artifacts, and animals that humans like or resemble; (2) exclusion of humans from its scheme of wildlife classification; (3) lack of activities that teach the stated concept of wildlife's intrinsic value, although each of five other stated values has 9 to 15 teaching activities; and (4) lack of activities that illustrate man's position in the "food web." Although anthropocentrism has long been a fundamental assumption of European culture, it has failed to provide a sustained, healthy biosphere. There is a place in the curriculum for materials like Project WILD, provided they are suitably labeled, but there should also be room for criticisms of anthropocentric assumptions and presentations of the biocentric view. This paper includes 20 references. (SV)