Not to butt in, but I think he is alluding to the value of things are inherent in you placing importance on them. That you possibly value a species more than 1 single human life is your personal values, but they exist nonetheless. Also, without the "death" part of it on one end: do you value a species enough to spend a full year of your time on helping that species continue to exist? A month? A day? An hour?

We inherently place importance on things by a) spending time on those things, or b) spending money we earned by working on those things.