On his book The Fall of the Wild: Extinction, De-Extinction, and the Ethics of Conservation
Cover Interview of January 16, 2019
In a nutshell
The Fall of the Wild is a book about the ethical challenges
of conservation in a time of accelerating wildlife losses and growing
scientific and technological power. In an age of extinction, biodiversity
scientists and wildlife advocates have sought to curb species declines and
extinctions via a range of scientific and policy strategies, from the
traditional (regulations, referenda, and refuges) to the novel (the scientific
wizardry of genetic engineering). The more ambitious and aggressive conservation
approaches, however, raise thorny questions about the ethical consequences of
our expanding incursions in wild populations and places.
Can we, for example, uphold our responsibilities to protect
wild species while at the same time avoid taking too heavy a hand in these
efforts? How do we balance our desire to “do whatever it takes” to save species
headed toward extinction while still preserving a meaningful understanding of
the wild as something we don’t design and control? In the book, I argue that
the tension between these two impulses ripples through a wide range of
conservation questions and challenges, from the field, to the zoo, to the lab.
Centered on a series of iconic episodes of species
extinctions (from the great auk to the Tasmanian tiger), the book makes the
case that some of our more heroic efforts to study, restore, and conserve
species actually pose a threat to the ideal of preserving a wild nature that
isn’t completely under the human thumb. From collecting wildlife specimens for
museums and the wilderness aspirations of zoos, to the high-tech attempt to “revive”
long-extinct species using cutting-edge biological and engineering techniques, the
book explores the science and ethics of conservation in a time of increasing
societal concern, scientific acumen, and ecological impact.
The Fall of the Wild should therefore be read as an
accessible and informed overview of some of the moral dilemmas gripping our
efforts to save wild species today, as well as a guide to long-running and
emerging conservation practices and debates that have shaped the human-nature
relationship in the modern era.
The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009
[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011
In a nutshell
The Fall of the Wild is a book about the ethical challenges of conservation in a time of accelerating wildlife losses and growing scientific and technological power. In an age of extinction, biodiversity scientists and wildlife advocates have sought to curb species declines and extinctions via a range of scientific and policy strategies, from the traditional (regulations, referenda, and refuges) to the novel (the scientific wizardry of genetic engineering). The more ambitious and aggressive conservation approaches, however, raise thorny questions about the ethical consequences of our expanding incursions in wild populations and places.
Can we, for example, uphold our responsibilities to protect wild species while at the same time avoid taking too heavy a hand in these efforts? How do we balance our desire to “do whatever it takes” to save species headed toward extinction while still preserving a meaningful understanding of the wild as something we don’t design and control? In the book, I argue that the tension between these two impulses ripples through a wide range of conservation questions and challenges, from the field, to the zoo, to the lab.
Centered on a series of iconic episodes of species extinctions (from the great auk to the Tasmanian tiger), the book makes the case that some of our more heroic efforts to study, restore, and conserve species actually pose a threat to the ideal of preserving a wild nature that isn’t completely under the human thumb. From collecting wildlife specimens for museums and the wilderness aspirations of zoos, to the high-tech attempt to “revive” long-extinct species using cutting-edge biological and engineering techniques, the book explores the science and ethics of conservation in a time of increasing societal concern, scientific acumen, and ecological impact.
The Fall of the Wild should therefore be read as an accessible and informed overview of some of the moral dilemmas gripping our efforts to save wild species today, as well as a guide to long-running and emerging conservation practices and debates that have shaped the human-nature relationship in the modern era.