If you’re worried about the present
extinction crisis, you can stop now. It’s over. We lost. That’s the conclusion
of MIT professor Stephen Meyer in his trenchant analysis, “The End of the Wild”,
published in 2006 by Boston Review Books. He writes, “Nothing – not national or
international laws, global bioreserves, local sustainability schemes or even ‘wildlands’
fantasies – can change the current course.”
The wild is gone, we have destroyed
it. In the process we have created an environment where weedy species can
thrive. Weedy species are adaptive generalists like raccoons, coyotes, rats and
deer. They are to be distinguished from “relic” species, like African elephants
and giant pandas, whose numbers are declining due to human encroachment, and “ghost”
species, who are doomed to extinction either because they can’t adapt quickly
enough to human changes in their environment or from over-hunting and
over-fishing. Examples of ghost species include African lions, whose numbers
have plunged from greater than 200,000 in 1980 to under 20,000 today mostly
because of perceived threats to livestock, and large fish such as tuna and
swordfish.
Meyers identifies the main causes
of the crisis as landscape transformation, pollution and over-consumption. Though
we’ve enacted legislation (such as the Endangered Species Act) and created
reserves, these actions, he argues, are too little too late. They are not changing
the outcome that we are losing species and the wild.
So what’s to be done?
First, Meyers contends, we have to
abandon business as usual. The future biosphere under the present scheme of
benign neglect will not be human-friendly: we would see the collapse of
additional fish stocks, ecosystems would lose the functions we depend on, there
would be an increase in pests, parasites and disease-causing organisms and,
worst of all, we would lose all the species that are psychologically important
to us – the quality of life on Earth would plummet.
Second, in order to understand the
crisis, we must realize that the end of the wild is about us, not about “the
environment.” Our own cultural norms, values and priorities are now being
tested. Meyers reminds us that though it’s easy to blame corporations, it’s
still about us and our demands for “instant-on appliances, out-of-season
vegetables and ten mpg armored transports to move groceries home.” This is why
we’re drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
He advocates an ecological identity
that “underscores the connection between how we live and what happens around
us.” Though we’re beginning to see the wild as providing us with natural
resources and the genetic links between ourselves and other species on the tree
of life, we need to see moral linkages and the realities of a shared existence
and shared fate. Presumably, Meyers admits, this ethical transformation will
take centuries.
In the meantime, he argues, we have
a moral obligation to take steps to reduce the impact of the heavy hand of
human selection. He urges research into understanding how the remaining wild
functions, protecting the landscape to preserve ecosystem functions and more
intensive management, through, for example, additional legislation. These
efforts allow us to examine our role as the planet’s stewards. After all,
Meyers asks, “What is the essence of our own morality if it fails to encompass
most of the life on Earth.”
Meyers' book is a concise diagnosis of one of the main problems of our time. Buy it here.
