Rethinking de-extinction
Recent years have seen a surge of popular interest and untold millions of dollars invested in efforts to resurrect extinct species like the passenger pigeon, the woolly mammoth, and the Tasmanian tiger. While researchers rush to develop the genetic techniques required to bring back these species, a broad range of ethical, legal, social, and ecological questions remain largely unasked, let alone answered.Ìý
Current de-extinction efforts need to expand the conversation beyond whether or not resurrecting species is technically possible, to explore in more detail what this proposition means, whether it is a good idea, and if so, how it should be pursued. Doing so requires the development of a multidisciplinary research initiative that gets out of the laboratory to consider a variety of broader contexts, from the ecosystems and human communities that might eventually be required to host these resurrected species, to the cultural, legal, and economic contexts related to the conservation of biodiversity, the ownership of genetic resources, and more (see further questions below).Ìý
This project aims to:
Advance our understanding of the many complex social, legal, ethical, and ecological dimensions of de-extinction projects.Ìý
Foster an informed and critical popular understanding of this complex topic.
Develop guidelines and other resources to aid public and private entities engaged in projects in this space.Ìý
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°ä´Ç²Ô³Ù°ù¾±²ú³Ü³Ù´Ç°ù²õ: Professor Thom van Dooren, Professor Sonja Van Wichelen, Professor Fleur Johns, Associate Professor Kate Owens, Dr Christopher Rudge, Professor Peter Banks, Professor Dieter Hochuli
Outputs
Professor Peter Banks and Professor Dieter Hochuli argue in that technology can't undo extinction.
Authored by Thom van Dooren and Deborah Bird Rose, 2014Ìý
takes a critical perspective on the emerging prospect of ‘de-extinction’ as a response to the current period of massive biodiversity loss. Drawing on our own humanities and social sciences research into the complex cultural contexts in which conservation and extinction take place, we question some of the underlying philosophical premises of de-extinction projects, their potential to undermine existing relationships between conservationists and local communities and their capacity to elide the more significant issues of the complexity of human involvement in all this death.
Professor Dieter Hochuli is . "The problem with the word de-extinction for many ecologists is that we see extinction [as] being an irreversible event that has finality about it, a bit like death. The idea that you can reverse those sorts of things is anathema, I think, biologically, but also philosophically and ethically," Hochuli says.