Protecting the Creation: Understanding Biodiversity Loss and its connections to the evolution of human nature

“In the end, our society will be defined not only by what we create, but by what we refuse to destroy”.

- John C. Sawhill, President of the Nature Conservancy (1990-2000)

Overview

E.O.Wilson in, The Creation, presents an eloquent argument for the responsible stewardship of the planet. His arguments focus on both anthropocentric and ecocentric reasoning. The crisis at hand, he thinks, is very real and holds the potential to destroy the very elements of the planet. He believes, “Biodiversity is our most valuable but least appreciated resource.”[1] However past surface arguments of putting breaks on the juggernaut of capitalism and creating public awareness about our predicament, this paper tries to unearth the source of the disease and its cure. The paper is divided into three parts to separate and identify the different dimensions to the problem of biodiversity loss and its solutions.

The first segment is solely related to understanding biodiversity loss and why it needs to be treated, on both a local and global level. Some light is shed on human efforts in view of the fact that “Environmental problems are innately ethical. They require vision simultaneously into the short and the long reaches of time.” [2] The second segment goes past the obvious observable anthropocentric effects and asks the questions: Who is Man answerable too? How do we define ourselves on earth in relation to other species? And finally who is “Man, the Machine” and why is he the greatest threat to biodiversity? The third and final segment is optimistic and hopeful. It is an appeal to recognize the viability of two essential ideas: approaching problems such as biodiversity loss, through the conscilience of knowledge and finally – the evolution of “Man, the Machine” to “Man, the Animal”.

Part 1: Planet in peril – Understanding the ground realities of Biodiversity loss

Biodiversity and its Importance

Biodiversity, or Biological diversity, “is the key to the maintenance of the world as we know it”[3]. This is one concept which along with climate change and resource depletion has become synonymous with the popular face of environmentalism. Biodiversity in its most honest form is a definition of the incredible arrays of species, genetic material and ecosystems that comprise life in any habitat. Structurally Biodiversity extends vertically from the individual genes to the complex ecosystems. At the most basic level is genetic diversity, the coded material that every individual of a species contains. If the organism was produced from a sexually reproducing pair then, it contains genetic material from both parents. This genetic variance between individuals of the same species is present in all living populations of the world and is one of the driving forces of evolution by natural selection. Rising above the individual is the species. The species diversity of an ecosystem is a systemic calculation of the total number of groups that cannot interbreed to produce breeding offspring. Just a single isolating trait possessed by a group of individuals can make them a different species. However the acquisition of these differences in practice or form is a side effect of evolution – the main idea here is to survive within a given niche. Thus adaptations initiated to survive often become differences that lead to speciation. Finally, Biodiversity also exists on an ecosystem level. The health of a region is often underwritten by how many diverse ecosystems it contains. Thus the exchange between grassland and a tropical rainforest is an important relationship when understanding the concept of ecosystemic biodiversity.

Before one can protect, one needs to understand the value of what is being protected. Wilson says, “While most people around the world care about the natural environment, they don’t know why they care, or why they should feel responsible for it”.[4] What is the true value of Biodiversity? : To Human society and to the proper functioning of the biosphere. Trying to commodify a construct that hasn’t been discovered in its totality is a hard task. The Opportunity Costs of allowing for Biodiversity to be lost add up from many different sources.

v Anthropocentric Reasons :

Medicine : Biological species all over the planet are our single largest source for the creation of new drugs. Wilson says , “Few realize how much we already depend on wild organisms for medicine”. A sentiment rather out of place when looking down the lists of maladies that have been cured or have the potential to be cured by compounds created within “wild” species. Some examples: Aspirin, the most widely used medicinal drug in the world, was derived from salicylic acid found in meadowsweet ( Filipendula ulmaria), the rosy periwinkle from Madagascar is the source of two alkaloid chemicals with proven phenomenal anti-cancer abilities, the saliva of the leech, an annelid worm, contains hirudin which has been extracted and used the treat hemorrhoids, rheumatism, thrombosis and contusions, the neem plant, that in India, has been called the village pharmacy due to its versatility in treatment of multitude of illnesses – these are just some examples from the vast array the products which are mainstays in the pharmaceutical industry. In 1998 the “over-the-counter” price of drugs from plants was calculated to be around $20 billion in the USA and $84 billion worldwide.[5] Wilson says in the United states alone close to 40 % of prescriptions are filled by organism-derived medicine, a number that can only grow exponentially considering only small percentage of the worlds species have been chronicled, much less tested for medicinal compounds. [6]

Ecosystem Services : Even though we might not socially adhere to the concept, human beings are still just a species that exist within the connected web the life. While we vehemently oppose our said position, we inescapably depend on the ecosystem for the multitude of services without which the basic stability of our societies would collapse. A study done by economists and environmental scientists in 1997 estimated the value the ecosystem services as a contribution to society as $ 33 trillion dollars or higher. This number was almost twice the GNP of the global states. Ecosystem services demystified are the basic mechanisms that run the biosphere. They include: atmospheric regulation, purification and catchments the freshwater, construction and maintenance the soil, running the nutrient cycles, detoxification and recirculation the waste, crop pollination and the production of lumber, fodder and biomass fuel. Therefore in order to structurally and economically replace ecosystem services would require the annual GNP of the world to increase by $33 trillion annually, since this is impossible the value of Biodiversity to the stable running of human society becomes undeniable.[7] A recent example of the effects on society after ecosystem services collapsed (were made to collapse) is the Hurricane Katrina. One of the significant reasons of the overwhelming nature of the event was the destruction of the wetlands of Louisiana through oil drilling. The wetlands in the past had helped to mellow down the devastating hurricane winds, but since “the 1930s some 1,900 square miles (4,900 square kilometers) of coastal wetlands—the swath nearly the size the Delaware or almost twice that of Luxembourg—have vanished”.[8]Thus New Orleans having lost its natural security barrier was wrecked.

Aesthetic Value: Probably the hardest idea to present as a quantified number is the positive psychological effects of Biodiversity and ecosystems on humans. Biophilia as Wilson explains is our inherent instinctive love for non-human life. As evident in society, people spend millions of dollars every year to visit zoos, national parks and wildlife sanctuaries. The fascination with the non-human world, even though species and ecosystem specific, is a driving force of conservation.[9] Infact this has given rise to the institution of Ecotourism – where biodiversity is used to lure tourists. It has even been suggested that Biophilia can be used as preventive medicine, after studies showed marked reduction in stress and aggression levels after viewing “farmlands and forests”.[10]

v Ecocentric Reasons –

Rights of Species – “Do other species…have inalienable rights?”[11]Deep Ecologists such as Vandana Shiva and Murray Bookchin would reply to that question in affirmative; however they are in the minority. Due to the structure of human society our understanding of value is biased and regulated by a set of ethics which rely on bettering only the human condition. The bedrock of many human values is religious ideology. A majority of the world’s religions limited themselves to understanding the human to human interaction and overlooked the human to ecosystem interaction. A major reason for this was commodification of the non-human world as a resource for bettering the human condition. The ethical motives for this have spelled doom for the understanding of the rights of non-human life. In some ways in order to create a boundary between the human and the non-human, inalienable rights were preserved for the realm of humans – to underline our apparent rise above nature. However, this paradigm of “othering” has proved to be destructive for both human and non-human species. Even though the debate still rages on about the more than cursory existence of species and the ability of non-human species to create complex “cultural” systems, their intrinsic value is yet to become a part of the major populous. [12]

Biodiversity Loss and Species Extinction

We are in the middle of a mostly human generated sixth mass extinction. The data is piling in from all corners of the world, from every continent including Antarctica. The verdict isn’t ambiguous as some may claim, but very clear and contingent to our lifestyles. The planet has been through cataclysmic species depletions in the past, but the factors leading to such spasms were all natural – ranging from giant meteorite strikes to relative positioning of the sun and earth on their cosmic axes. However scientists have obtained understanding from geological formations such as rock strata and paleontoglogical sources such as fossils and sub-fossil bones and found that the appearance of humans usually corresponded with a mass disappearance of species.[13] This phenomenon is not confined to one region; from Australia to Madagascar, the Americas to the Pacific Islands, the “human wave has rolled like a smothering blanket”.[14]

The crisis is better understood as the five letter acronym, HIPPO. When each letter is expanded it gives us:

H – Habitat loss

I- Invasive species

P- Pollution

P- Human Overpopulation

O – Over harvesting

Thus “the decline of Earth’s biodiversity is an unintended consequence of multiple factors that have been enhanced by human activity”. The letters of HIPPO are arranged in their decreasing order of destructiveness with Habitat loss being the most destructive.

The factors mentioned above come into play at various stages of a species’ destruction – in some ways most species are able to fend of these effects when stressed upon individually, however the combinatory destructive effects of these factors are too much for most species to survive through.[15]

The facts confronting us are scary to say the least: 32.5 percent of amphibian species, 12 percent of reptiles, 23 percent of birds and 23 percent of mammals worldwide are now facing extinction. [16] This epidemic of loss is felt hardest in the areas of maximum biodiversity. These regions identified as Biodiversity Hotspots are fragile, species intense, extensively threatened ecosystems that require our immediate attention. Twenty five in all, they are scattered all over the globe, with a high percentage of them in the global “south”. However these are just land zones, what about the marine ecosystems which cover roughly 70% of the planet? Similar models have now emerged identifying four more zones: Shallow water habitats and coral reefs, estuaries, floor of the deep sea and the high seas. This helps put the bigger picture in perspective – since our understanding of ecosystems often never strays past the terrestrial realm, partly due to our own rather land based existence.[17]

Another question often asked is: How fast is diversity declining in a habitat or region? Destruction of forest land leads to a phenomenon identified by mathematical modeling as exponential decay.[18] This predicts the steady decrease of species when habitat is lost, till a certain equilibrium is reached, this occurs since there are more species at first, which then reduces to a few. Applying this model of biodiversity loss to habitats across the world has brought about some startling yet accurate results. In a patch of sub-tropical forest(14km²) in Brazil the bird species suffered 62 percent extinction over a period of hundred years, as was predicted by the model; while at Bogor Botanical Garden a forest patch(0.9km²) that was cleared lost 20 of its 62 bird species over a period of 50 years. Even though such models help us confront with a certain degree of aplomb the amount of biodiversity loss – they are still very limited. The caveat here being our rather limited information on the profiling of species, especially within incredibly diverse habitats like tropical rain forests, therefore the measurement is always a percentage of a certain value, but never an absolute. However it can be said with a great degree of probability that extinction rates are usually one species per million a year – human activity has seen this number rise to between 1000 and 10,000 species a year, just factoring in habitat loss. Clearly there is a problem and we are “it”. [19]

Anthropogenic Responses: Domestic and International

A Patersonian approach to the issue of human response to rectify or ensure the survival of Biodiversity, would is rather cynical. Since social and economic development, the two drivers of human society, by their nature are the primary causes of environmental harm. Therefore, Patterson would say, solutions cannot be found from systemic tools that cause the problem itself. Having said that, there are however response mechanisms in place that are functioning to stall this impending crisis. One of these is CITES – (the) Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. Even though CITES is an interstate treaty its enforcement is not mandated by any rule of law, the states are instead given voluntary ability to enforce and regulate as they see fit. The notion of this protective act, even though to ensure the survival of non-human species, ties into the commodification of nature argument. But, with all its flaws and weakened state of functioning CITES is the largest interstate conservation agreement in the world and its efforts have helped curb biodiversity loss and species extinction in certain key areas of the globe.[20]

Wilson says in, The Diversity of Life, “The better an ecosystem is known, the less likely it will be destroyed”.[21] The known number of species today rests somewhere between 1.5 million to 1.8 million, a number that some say doesn’t even come close to representing the 3.6 million to 112.0 million species that the planet contains. The problem is the lack of a large scale biological survey done in multiple ecosystems across the planet, much in the way INBio is functioning in Costa Rica since 1989. There is a need to create an encyclopedia of life, which chronicles most if not all the species that exist on earth and today we even have the technological know how to create such an in-exhaustive database. The Great Smoky Mountain inventory is a wonderful reminder of how citizen driven projects can achieve brilliant results. Thus the convergence of these databases on biodiversity from all over the world has started the process of understanding and identifying what we actually have to save. A byproduct of such actions is the “bioblitz”. Arguably the best way to generate concern, involve the community and ensure for productive work being done for the protection of biodiversity, as Wilson notes, have now occurred in 17 countries and 7 US states. [22]

Development in the past was understood as an activity usually performed against the grain of nature. Protection of Biodiversity in natural habitat had to be accomplished by isolating areas that were critical and shutting them of to the influences of human society. This old concept of environmentalism has slowly changed. Development is no longer seen as the enemy but rather as an ally in this fight to save species and habitats. Revenue generated from developed land is used frequently to resurrect and protect species and ecosystems that are in peril or need assistance. In the BBC film/documentary, Planet Earth, the example of Tanzania is presented. The old methodology of throwing out the indigenous populous from the Serengeti national park and creating a barricaded Eden caused a massive public outcry, while aiding the poaching industry.[23] As mentioned on the film, “the masai were chased out of the park and never allowed in”. These measures even though effective at the time, were short sighted and often discounted the native tribal population that had existed in a balance with the natural ecosystems for millennia. The new concepts of conserving Biodiversity account for this oversight and actually allow for the community to be a part of the process. Thus Masai tribesman, are employed in park ranger forces, as caretakers of the Forest Lodge for tourists and as scouts and lookouts for probable illegal animal trade. This system has not only proved ideal for the biodiversity of the area, but has also generated income for the local tribes; this has in turn led to a far better regulated conservation mechanism. [24]

Work done by regional and international NGOs is too vast to take note of here. On WiserEarth, a global database of NGOs working on various environmental and social justice issues, the number of organizations listed under Biodiversity Conservation is 3,700.[25] This number is quite impressive and growing by the minute. The work done by massive environmental NGOs like the World Wildlife Foundation and The Nature Conservancy in the arena of biodiversity conservation is substantial. The United Nations Environmental Program and the World Bank developed the Global Environmental Facility in 1990 to “set up national parks, promote sustainable forestry and establish conservation trust funds in developing countries”. The GEF has in its first seven years of existence put forward $450 million worldwide towards their efforts.[26]

The efforts by thousands of NGOs, governmental panels and interstate alliances are often offset by unbridled industrialization at any cost. Especially in the developing “south” which contain a majority proportion of this biodiversity, the costs of development have been much higher than its benefits. From massive tracts of the Amazon lost to ethanol plants and cattle ranches to palm oil plantations of Philippines and Indonesia – due to the inherent ideology of the capitalist juggernaut, the lure of western lifestyles and an absence of regulating governmental mechanisms, biodiversity has suffered. Often this destruction and lack of knowledge about species loss among the masses is a result of governmental pursuit of a certain political ideology. Due to the fragmented and weakened sense of democracy in a lot of the countries in the “south”, citizen driven initiatives to protect habitats and slow down biodiversity loss, has been met with governmental violence or non-chalance.

The environmental movement has also evolved to the extent that a major force in present times is protection of a species as opposed to an individual specimen. The concept of the individual, though important in the human world, usually ranks below the survival of the ecosystem, when understanding nature. The push has been to keep intact biological diversity and stable populations in different habitats, as opposed to protecting the right of individual animals. On a moral and ethical level, this concept though less revolutionary than one that argues for protection of individual animals, is much more realistic and vital when trying to protect biodiversity.

Understanding the roots of this problem takes us back to Paterson and his critique of the state-system of domestic sovereignty and its failure when the crisis is on a global level. The essential point to note here is – what we are trying to protect is the “commons”. The efforts have to evolve out of an interstate alliance system, which accords equal value to ecosystems irrespective of their geo-political status. Even though the apparent notion is that species belong to individual nations, I doubt the social construct of a nation state can stand up to the objective web of life that constitutes the heart of ecosystems. [27][i]

Part 2: Causal nature of the Problem – Man, the Machine[28]

“For us it is an exact knowledge of what truth is, all that it implies, and how to employ it to best effect.” E.O.Wilson, Prologue to The Future of Life

Existence Outside an Answerable System

In true deductive fashion it is important that I look past the visages of function and structure and try to find cause or the generator. Carolyn Merchant says in, The Death of Nature, “The world we have lost was organic”.[29]A replacement of the word, world with the word system would still preserve the essence of that argument. Why is the system the center of my argument here? Well, I believe that in order to understand human actions and sensitivities towards non-human species, it is crucial to understand the tools we use to relate to them. These systemic tools are derived from paradigms which evolve over time. When Merchant suggests that we have lost an organic system, she sums up in a sentence the reasons for the existence of the present conflict between the human and non-human world.

When we think of everyday society, and the reason it is relatively stable and devoid of total chaos – the reasonable value that seems to be holding us together is accountability. It could be through religion, law or economics - humans are answerable to each other. The effect of this phenomenon is so obvious that people take it for granted almost all the time. Due to this aspect of inbuilt answerability at least within regional populous, great measures are taken to safeguard our existence.[30] However when it comes to the natural world, this system of answerability disappears. The reason for this could be anything from our genetic differences with other non-human species, to our arrogance drawn from our superior cranial matter that allows us to create an (apparently) sophisticated society. Whatever the reason, the final reason is that due to the lack of such a clause in our social contract with nature – for the majority of the human species – there is hardly ever any obligation to consider the non-human species as a part of our system. Instead a disparate reality is created for the non-human world. It has different rules, is affected by different moral and ethical standards and usually lacks the sense of urgency that is inherent when dealing with crisis within the human system. Was it always this way? Probably not, according to Merchant, who believes that the scientific revolution destroyed the unified and holistic systemic form of structure which existed in the human and non-human world.

Our presence outside this answerable system when interacting with the non-human world is probably the most honest rationale behind our actions towards species and ecosystems today.
Commodification of Value

Wilson proclaims in, The Creation, that, “each species is a world in itself”.[31] A heartfelt, grand, generous and perceptive proclamation, but to most people that’s all it remains as. The reason being simple: our tools for ascribing value to almost anything work to commodify. It is a sad reality, but for most people value begins and ends with a price tag. Wilson makes some vigorous arguments keeping in mind this very aspect of human society and to my knowledge they might even have the desired effect on a certain group of people, but still the basic problem remains. Going back to Paterson, this is a direct outcome of the capitalist social structure. Value, an abstract normative concept, is demystified and made tangible so that cash registers all over the world can define it. This methodology works very efficiently when dealing with “non-living” resources, that gain significance based upon the commodified price tag that define what they are worth. However, even though it is often done presently, I find it a little ridiculous when an oak tree, or a snapping turtle or a hectare of taiga is given a price tag. It is assumed that all the value these living, sentient entities posses can be untangled and presented on a spread sheet. The presence of that price tag, then dictates how we relate to other species – a tiger is worth $ 3 million, an alligator about $ 5000, and a bacteriophage a few cents if it’s lucky. They are included on our list of commodities to support and our understanding of what they mean to our society, to our species is reduced to this linear notion of basic economics. The outcome of this system is nothing but wonderful – people have donated thousands of dollars to protect natural systems that are worth millions of dollars. If the latest figures are to be believed than $33 trillion of ecosystem services is the annual addition to our society. Ideologically it curbs our efforts to stem biodiversity loss due to the inherent “non-living” status administered to the species and it also governs the rather impersonal and non-empathetic demeanor we posses when interacting with the non-human world.

A systemic flaw of this magnitude should take the world of ethics by storm – yet (apparently) it doesn’t, and so we understand species as items listed on the seasonal catalogues, to wonder about and save with our credit cards.[32]

Part 3: Causal nature of the Solution – Man, the Animal

“The moral imperative of humanism is the endeavor alone, whether successful or not, provided the effort is honorable and failure memorable.”

E.O.Wilson, Conscilience

“Ecological design is the art that reconnects us as sensuous creatures evolved over millions of years to a beautiful world. That world does not need to be remade but rather revealed. To do that, we do not need research as much as rediscovery of old and forgotten things.”

David W. Orr

The Marriage of Sense and Soul[33]

In The Call of the Wild, Buck a “tamed” dog from a leisurely life in California is thrust into the wild. The wild here represents both the natural wilderness and the “way of the club”.[34] The struggle was one of man against nature: they were adversaries, competitors, converters of each other. Instinctively it seems, the untamed beast brought out the beast in us and the untamed was subjugated; as Buck notes, “he saw, once for all, that he stood no chance against a man with a club”. Understanding this conflict ultimately helps me unravel the world of actions to reach the world of cause.

Nature wasn’t always something we were trying to rise above, often in our past; it was an entity that we were trying to rise with. From the Ionians to the Mayans to the ancient Vedic tribes of northern India – a concept of society included the ecosystem. More importantly the definition of nature was derived from both instinct and rationale. This ideological state of being was over time fragmented and minimized in intensity and often remained as nothing more than a leverage point of certain ethicists trying to invoke in us a love for all. However, another issue at hand here is our understanding of the world.

It is my observation, that even though our cranial matter has provided for us the ability to create extra-genetic culture, our civilizations have over the years become more specialized and linear. We have disconnected from each other, from ourselves in order to understand singular variables and assumed that the effect on them from other variables can be ignored. This fragmented way of understanding reality has made us loose sight of not just the bigger picture, but also of our connection to it.

Often casting Biodiversity loss as an “environmental problem” has the effect of trivializing its true nature. It seems much more effective to understand how the problem is interdisciplinary and not one that should stay isolated to one form of learning. The need to come together academically and ideologically to protect our common future has never been more pertinent.

In Conscilience, Wilson argues for a return to the understanding of integrated knowledge. I strongly agree with him. In face of our environmental problems today, working solutions cannot be developed by specialists in one arena. Their flaws will lie in their very act of specialization. An appeal to save the planet has to include people from every walk of life, from the Baptist pastor to the secular humanist scholar – it is their combined understanding which can and will transcend the boundaries of normal ethics and be able to re-invent our solutions.

End of the Partial Identity

Thoreau says in Walden, “But lo! Men have become the tools of their tools”[35]. This systemic slavery to an understanding so partial and incomplete is hardly the savior we are waiting for. Biodiversity loss cannot be averted by a species that identifies more with their I-pods than the mountain gorilla. If we are trying to ensure the survival of a planet of wonder, then first we have to re-learn how to wonder, how to feel awe at the creation, how to marvel our interconnectedness. I believe in the pages of The Creation, Wilson strays into this argument very often, trying to evoke a special sense of awe within the pastor. This effort to create common ground within the two strongest forces driving human society is admirable, but will fail, if an effort isn’t made to re-conciliate our partial identities.

Solutions to biodiversity loss have to be region specific and respective of thousands of years of human ritual and culture. They will include as much the data of a scientist as they will the rituals of a shaman, for they represent arguably disparate but inherently necessary views of the natural world. The step in this direction will involve the help of people like the Masai and Adivasis, the tribes that have learnt to worship the divine in nature – for to remove them from the front lines of conservation would be an irreparable loss to our understanding of co-evolution and co-existence.

The conflict between Buck and the club will be a thing of the past, only when we can acknowledge our connection to the wild, when we can recognize the beast within us. In some ways this concept of man, the animal, [36] will have to coupled with and reflect our integration of knowledge. Thus intellectually the revolution will help us find meaning within apparently disparate disciplines of learning eventually helping us create solutions that can find context in many different arenas. Instinctively the revolution will help stabilize this ancient battle within, of buck against the club – the co-existence of which will reveal the lost and ignored connection of our most primal nature with our apparently civilized one. The savior of biodiversity the world over will be the rise of this half-man, half-beast that will be able to see past the short sightedness of both.

The governing dynamics of human nature are still an enigma. Yet our ability to overcome crisis and transcend the system is mythical. As in most battles against the impossible, faith is going to be our greatest leverage. The faith that we can look past institution, past mesmerizing social cages, past our years of mechanical musings on what constitutes a stable existence, to embrace an ethic of conservation that is not just honest and contextual, but one that will help us recognize and preserve what is and always has been, our most sacred family.

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[1] Wilson, The Diversity of Life, pg 269

[2] Wilson, The Diversity of Life, pg 298

[3] Wilson, The Diversity of Life , pg 13

[4] Wilson, The Creation, pg 13

[5] Wilson, The Future of Life, pg 119

[6] For further reading : The Diversity of Life, chapter 13 – Unmined Riches

[7] Wilson, The Future of Life, pg 106

[8] Bourne, “Gone with the Water”, The National Geographic Magazine (Oct. 2004)

[9] Love for savannah/grasslands over tropical forests (Wilson, The Creation)

[10] Wilson, The Future of Life, pg 139-141

[11] Wilson, The Future of Life, pg 133- 134

[12] For further reading consult : Merchant, The Death of Nature, Chapters : 2,3,7,8,10

[13] Points of interest: Jared diamond argues against the theory of climatic factors being the primary cause of species extinction by stating: “How could the changes in climate and vegetation during the retreat of the last glacier lead to mass extinctions in North America, but not in Europe or Asia?”(Quaternary Megafaunal Extinctions: Variations on a theme by Paganini, Journal of Archaeological Science, 1989)

[14] Wilson, The Diversity of Life, chapter 12

Wilson, The Creation, Chapter 8

[15] Point of Interest: In The Diversity of Life, Wilson talks about Inbreeding depression, an effect of genetic diversity loss, which makes the process of conservation even harder. Thus stable populations cannot be achieved by simply adding individuals or recreating habitats.

[16] Wilson, The Creation, pg 77- 81

[17] Wilson, The Diversity of Life, pg 250-257

Wilson, The Creation, pg 97

[18] Point of Interest: In order to relate the destruction of habitat to species loss, an equation often used is,

S = CA^z, where S is the number of species and A is the area of the land where species live, while C and z are constants that vary depending on the group of organisms. The higher the z value the more the species numbers will eventually fall after the area is reduced. (Wilson, The Diversity of Life, pg 267)

[19] Wilson, The Diversity of Life , pg 265-268

[20] What is CITES?,www.cites.org

[21] Wilson, The Diversity of Life, pg 306

[22] Wilson, The Creation, pg 154

[23] Point of Interest: Deprived of their land and livelihood the native population often take to illegal trade in wild species, which usually is the most profitable, and at times, the only alternative. Often there is also derision which is created against the natural world due to the process of expulsion from an area that they used to share with other species – this is ideologically detrimental when trying to create an understanding of stable co-existence.

[24] Planet Earth, Living Together, BBC

[25] www.wiserearth.org

[26] Wilson, The Diversity of Life, Pg 322

[27] Point of Interest: The view offered there is a more postmodernist interpretation of what is a country. Other more modernist thinkers might argue for the citizenship of endemic species within their borders, a concept ironical when considering that these same groups are usually the ones denying species “inalienable rights”. It is assumed in the previous argument that ecosystems aren’t understood as commodities, such an assumption would make species, a natural resource. While protection can be achieved in such a scenario, the motives would be much more strategic and thus play right into the systemic flaw of the international state system.

[28] Disclaimer: This section is merely an overview of the rather intensive and well studied idea of the dominant mechanical western paradigm. In no way is this supposed to represent and exhaustive study of the relationship between man and nature and how it has evolved and why it ceases to be effective. A longer analysis of this is beyond the scope of this paper.

[29] Merchant, The Death of Nature, pg 1

[30] Point of Interest: It could be pointed out here, that race; gender, religion, nationality and a plethora of other aspects often create a lack of answerability. This is true – people respond most actively to other people that are most like them, however, for the purposes of my argument the real aspect to note is- the relative answerability of humans to each other as compared to our answerability to the natural world.

[31] Wilson, The Creation, pg 109

[32] Point of Interest: Another instance of the previously mentioned dualistic system of existence is that putting a price on humans is somehow always a morally degrading act. Our value is obviously not contained within economics and any attempts to do so in civilized society of today is either illegal or taboo; except of course the 30 million or so of bonded slave labor.

[33] Title source : Ken Wilber’s seminal book, The Marriage of Sense and Soul : Integrating Science and Religion

[34] London, The Call of the Wild, pg 12

[35] Thoreau, Walden, pg 38

[36] Disclaimer: In this instant Man the animal is not an entity devoid of empirical and social advancements. The argument isn’t to rollback thousands of years of human ingenuity – thus man represents the intellectual, rational cognizant being, while the animal is the instinctive, primeval, and born of nature and embodying its characteristics