Going the Way of the Dodo: De-Extinction, Dualisms, and Reframing Conservation

59 Pages Posted: 12 Aug 2014 Last revised: 18 Sep 2015

See all articles by Alejandro E. Camacho

Alejandro E. Camacho

University of California, Irvine, School of Law, Center for Land, Environment, and Natural Resources (CLEANR); Center for Progressive Reform

Date Written: August 11, 2014

Abstract

De-extinction, a suite of selective breeding or biotechnological processes for reviving and releasing into the environment members or facsimiles of an extinct species, has been the subject of a recent surge of analysis in popular, scientific, and legal literature. Yet de-extinction raises much more fundamental questions about the relationship between humans and nature, and the more and less useful ways that the law serves to navigate that relationship. Unfortunately, the endangered species, invasive species, and public land management laws likely to govern the revival and introduction of de-extinct species largely remain premised on understandings of nature as static and easily divisible from human activity. In these contexts, the law habitually privileges and even actively promotes what it identifies as natural and native over the unnatural and exotic.

Through the example of de-extinction, this article illustrates the limitations of the law’s reliance on these crude dualisms. Currently, de-extinct species will often be obstructed as non-native and introduced (even if they might promote ecological function in a particular area) and may be allowed or promoted in locations they used to exist (even if likely to cause ecological damage). De-extinction illustrates how policymakers need to reformulate natural resources law to be less dependent on these strict dualities. Instead, the article argues in favor of cautious risk assessment that acknowledges the dynamism of nature and humanity’s indivisibility from it.

Keywords: De-extinction, captive breeding, biotechnology, extinct, dualism, natural, native, exotic, invasive, natural resources, public land, protected area, Forest Service, Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, wilderness, biodiversity, ecological, endangered, species

Suggested Citation

Camacho, Alejandro E., Going the Way of the Dodo: De-Extinction, Dualisms, and Reframing Conservation (August 11, 2014). Washington University Law Review, Vol. 92, No. 4, 2015. pp.849-906, UC Irvine School of Law Research Paper No. 2014-38, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2478815

Alejandro E. Camacho (Contact Author)

University of California, Irvine, School of Law, Center for Land, Environment, and Natural Resources (CLEANR)

401 E. Peltason Drive, Suite 1000
Irvine, CA 92697-8000
United States

Center for Progressive Reform ( email )

500 West Baltimore Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
United States

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