Ben A. Minteer
Author of The Fall of the Wild: Extinction, De-Extinction, and the Ethics of Conservation
About the Author
Ben A. Minteer holds the Arizona Zoological Society Endowed Chair in the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University. He is coeditor most recently of After Preservation.
Works by Ben A. Minteer
The Fall of the Wild: Extinction, De-Extinction, and the Ethics of Conservation (2018) 17 copies, 1 review
The Landscape of Reform: Civic Pragmatism and Environmental Thought in America (2006) 16 copies, 1 review
The Ark and Beyond: The Evolution of Zoo and Aquarium Conservation (Convening Science: Discovery at the Marine… (2018) 11 copies
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Statistics
- Works
- 11
- Members
- 98
- Popularity
- #193,038
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 3
- ISBNs
- 30
- Languages
- 1
This book focuses on the ethics, pros and cons, of a variety of conservation methods. Ben Minteer makes use of several popular examples to make his point. Examples and topics that make an appearance in this book include the Passenger Pigeon, Great Auk, Thylacine, Elephants, American Bison, Condors, specimen collecting of marginal species, captive breeding programmes, the future appearance of zoos (think Jurassic Park without the dinosaurs), species translocation, assisted colonization of endeangered species outside their usual range, resurrection science, and the limits of technological "fixes" to problems.
What the author has tried to promote in this book is an alternative environmental ethic, what he calls "pragmatic preservationism". This concept captures two core ideas regarding conservation" (1) the growing need to intervene more aggressively to save species in a rapidly changing environment; and (2) an acknowledgement of our resonsibility to preseve a convincing sense of the wild and a respect for nature as we implement (or not) these interventions.
While this isn't a particularly original or detailed examination of the topic, it does make for an interesting, well-written, thought-provoking, enjoyable and short introduction to conservation ethics, with no irrelevant biographical side tangents.… (more)