Despite the propensity of species introductions to disrupt ecosystems through community disassembly, the use of species translocations is becoming more widely accepted. In this paper, we examine ethical investigations into human migration in an attempt to evaluate how translocation may be justified. Previous attempts to make the analogy between human and species migration have been prone to black and white thinking. We argue that the disagreement between nativist and cosmopolitan approaches to introduced species can be defused by extending the analogy (...) through the migration ethics literature. Additionally, by extending the discussion to the special status of refugees, we are able to develop a theoretical framework for species migrations that acknowledges the risk of species introduction while recognising that special obligations towards endangered species may necessitate the use of translocations. (shrink)

The study of biological invasions raises troubling scientific, political and moral issues that merit discussion and debate on a broad scale. Nativist trends in Conservation Biology have made environmentalists biased against alien species. This bias is scientifically questionable, and may have roots in xenophobic and racist attitudes. Rethinking conservationists' conceptions of biological invasion is essential to the development of a progressive environmental science, politics, and philosophy.

Environmentalists consider invasions by exotic species of plants and animals to be one of the most serious environmental problems we face today, as well as one of the leading causes of biodiversity loss. We argue that in order to develop and enact sensible policies, it is crucial to consider two philosophical questions: What exactly makes a species native or exotic, and What values are at stake? We focus on the first of these two questions, and offer some preliminary suggestions with (...) regard to the second. Through a series of case studies, we show that it is not always clear whether a species is native or exotic. We identify five possible criteria that could be used for distinguishing natives from exotics. Rather than identifying one of these criteria as the 'correct' one, we suggest that the concepts of 'native' and ' exotic ' function more like what some philosophers have called cluster concepts. That is, there are several characteristics that are typical of native species, and a corresponding set of characteristics that are typical of exotic species. None of these characteristics is either necessary or sufficient for identifying a species as either native or exotic. We then identify several of the values that are at stake in dealing with exotic species, and we suggest that policies need to avoid being overly simplistic. (shrink)

In this essay, I discuss the comparison between the restoration of natural environments and the Nazi project to develop a pure homeland for native species and authentic Aryan humans. There exists a metaphorical comparison between Nazi eliminationist policies regarding specific human populations and the eradication of invasive and non-native species in ecological restorations. Moreover, there are substantive environmental policies of the Nazi regime that appear to be similar to the goals and methodology of contemporary restoration practice. But there is also (...) a more fundamental connection: the idea of the domination of the natural world. The idea of domination is the key to understanding both the process of ecological restoration and its real connection to Nazism. (shrink)

As Raymond Williams famously declared, nature is one of the most complex words in the English language – and, we may confidently predict, its Germanic relatives including Dutch. The workshop that took place in June 2007 in the Netherlands, from which this volume is derived, was based on an earlier program exploring connections between our concepts of nature and related concepts of science and religion. Though one may not immediately expect these three realms to be interrelated, countless examples suggest otherwise.

Species are ordinarily conceived of as being native or non-native to either a geographical location or an ecological community. I submit that species may also be native or non-native to human communities. I argue, by way of an analogy with varieties of domesticated and cultivated species, that this sense of nativity is grounded by the cultural relationships human communities have with species. A further analogy is drawn with the motivations of varietal nativists – who seek to protect native varieties of (...) domesticated and cultivated species for the sake of their cultural value – to argue for the consideration of the cultural value of native species in environmental policy decisions regarding invasive non-native species. (shrink)

Two protracted debates about the moral status of animals in ecological restoration projects are discussed that both testify to the troubling aspects of our inclination to think in terms of dualisms and dichotomies. These cases are more or less complementary: the first one is about the (re)introduction of species that were once pushed out of their native environment; the other one concerns the elimination or eradication of “exotic” and “alien” species that have invaded and degraded ecosystems. Both cases show the (...) detrimental impact of dualistic thinking on ecological restoration projects. In the first case, communication and cooperation between stakeholders is frustrated by the opposition of zoocentrism and ecocentrism; in the second case the opposition of nativism and cosmopolitanism appears to be a major stumbling block for consensus building and conflict management. I will argue that “gradualization”—thinking in terms of degrees instead of boundaries—can offer a way out of this black-and-white thinking and can open up space for negotiation and deliberation among different and sometimes diverging perspectives. (shrink)

Proponents of ecological restoration view the practice as a means of both repairing damage done to ecosystems by humans and creating an avenue to re-establish respectful and cooperative human-environment relationships. One debate affecting ecological restoration focuses on the place of 'exotic' species in restored ecosystems. Though popular, campaigns against exotics have been criticized for their troubling rhetorical parallels with nativism aimed at human immigrants. I point to some of the reasons why this critique of nativism persists, despite protests that no (...) xenophobic intent is evident, emphasizing the intimacy between social metaphors and claims about exotic nature. Language is but one facet of an entanglement of nature and society that ecological restoration strives to take seriously; however, restoration practice remains ambivalent toward this dichotomy permitting a longing for lost community purity that is embraced in nativism. Regarding defenses of nativism, I point out limitations of attempts to reframe the issue from a reactionary rejection of the foreign Other toward an argument for protecting communities from a process akin to 'cultural imperialism'. (shrink)

: J. Baird Callicott's claim to have unified environmentalism and animal liberation should be rejected by holists and liberationists. By making relations of intimacy necessary for moral considerability, Callicott excludes from the moral community nonhuman animals unable to engage in intimate relations due to the circumstances of their confinement. By failing to afford moral protection to animals in factory farms and research laboratories, Callicott's biosocial moral theory falls short of meeting a basic moral demand of liberationists. Moreover, were Callicott to (...) include factory farm and research animals inside the moral community by affording them universal or non-communitarian rights, his theory would fall foul of environmentalists who seek to promote ecosystem stability and integrity via therapeutic hunting. If factory farm and research animals can have rights irrespective of their particular circumstances, then so can free- roaming animals from overabundant and exotic species. (shrink)

Ecological restoration and native landscaping are increasing, particularly in the American Midwest, where they form part of the area's history and culture of conservation. But practitioners rarely pause to ask philosophical questions related to categories of native and invasive or human control and harmony with nature. This article brings philosophy into conversation with practice, using members of Wild Ones Native Landscaping, a non-profit headquartered in Neenah, WI, as a case study. Philosophers and ethicists who are studying Ecological Restoration and Native (...) Landscaping can learn valuable lessons – in practicality, aesthetics and flexibility – from practitioners such as the Wild Ones. (shrink)

Classifying species as ‘native’ or ‘alien’ carries prescriptive force in the valuation and management of ‘nature’. But the classification itself and its application are contested, raising philosophical and geographical questions about place, space, rights, identity and belonging. This paper discusses leading critiques of the native/alien paradigm, including its conceptual fluidity, dichotomous rigidity and ethical difficulties, as well as the incendiary charge of xenophobia. It argues that valorizing ‘native nature’ as inherently the ‘best nature’ is not only obsolete but impracticable in (...) the Anthropocene, and that the preeminence of biogeographic origins should be replaced with a pragmatic focus on species’ behavior. (shrink)

This paper develops the outlines of a pragmatic, adaptive management-based approach toward the control of invasive nonnative species (INS) through a case study of Kings Bay/crystal River, a large artesian springs ecosystem that is one of Florida’s most important habitats for endangered West Indian manatees (Trichechus manatus). Building upon recent critiques of invasion biology, principles of adaptive management, and our own interview and participant–observer research, we argue that this case study represents an example in which rigid application of invasion biology’s (...) a␣priori imperative to minimize INS has produced counterproductive results from both an ecological and social standpoint. As such, we recommend that INS control in Kings Bay should be relaxed in conjunction with an overall program of adaptive ecosystem management that includes meaningful participation and input from non-institutional stakeholders. However, we also note that adaptive management and INS control are by no means mutually exclusive, in Kings Bay or elsewhere. Instead, we suggest that adaptive management offers a means by which INS control efforts can emerge from—and be evaluated through—ongoing scientific research and participatory dialogue about the condition of specific places, rather than non-contextual assumptions about the harmfulness of INS as a general class. (shrink)

As I travel the highways of Georgia, I am regularly appalled by the ubiquitous presence of kudzu. It covers trees, telephone poles, open swathes of land, and old houses, making many locations indistinguishable from one another; all I can see from the road is a wave of green covering any formerly distinctive markings. Thinking back to the intentional introduction of kudzu to the American southeast, I recognize that those individuals who encouraged the planting of kudzu made a serious mistake.1 Their (...) introduction of an invasive species has produced real harms to my local ecosystem.In this paper I will argue that the introduction of invasive species should be avoided, not only because it may directly interfere with .. (shrink)