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Ecosystems Unbound: Ethical Questions for an Interventionist Ecology

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Ethics and Emerging Technologies

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Chapter Summary

Most of the Earth’s ecosystems have been significantly impacted by human technologies and activities. Moreover, climate change, habitat loss, invasive species, agriculture, and pollution (among other factors), continue to cause very high rates of ecological change. In this Chapter, Ben A. Minteer and James P. Collins argue that it is becoming increasingly difficult to characterize nature as a pristine wilderness separate from humans and to hold this up as an ideal for which ecosystem management should strive. The alternative, they suggest, is to embrace more interventionist and pragmatic approaches to ecosystem management and species conservation. They discuss two such approaches in detail — managed relocation and Pleistocene re-wilding. Both management strategies involve introducing species into systems where they historically have not been; and Pleistocene re-wilding in particular involves extensive ecosystem design and manipulation. Minteer and Collins suggest several aspects of managed relocation and Pleistocene re-wilding that should be considered when evaluating whether or not to pursue and support them.

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Authors
  1. Ben A. Minteer
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  2. James P. Collins
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Northeastern University, Boston, USA

    Ronald L. Sandler

Copyright information

© 2014 Ben A. Minteer and James P. Collins

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Minteer, B.A., Collins, J.P. (2014). Ecosystems Unbound: Ethical Questions for an Interventionist Ecology. In: Sandler, R.L. (eds) Ethics and Emerging Technologies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137349088_30

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