[LUM#8] "What's left of the wilderness?"

[LUM Magazine] - Published on November 20, 2018 in Science-Society

Since the end of the 20th century, when the link between ecological crisis and human activity became clear, the protection of biodiversity has been at the heart of public debate. But what does biodiversity actually mean? Philosophy has taken up this question, inviting us to rethink our relationship with nature.

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The concept of biodiversity first appeared in the 1980s. A term that gradually replaced nature in the discourse of politicians, scientists and activists. For Virginie Maris, a philosopher at the Centre d'écologie fonctionnelle et évolutive, this change in vocabulary reflects " a profound change in our relationship with the environment, by abolishing the boundary between man and nature. A boundary which, according to the researcher, "has always functioned as a pivot of Western thought, but also as a thorny problem." Indeed, how can we think about man's place within this opposition?

"Athorny problem

The concept of biodiversity completely overturns the boundary between nature and culture, integrating humans into nature and doing away with " the need to refer to something other or external to humans. What interests us here is the diversity of living things.The theoretical distinction between what comes under human activity and what is independent of it is no longer really relevant.

Paradoxically, the term "biodiversity" has also distanced us from nature, relegating its protection to a more scientific, " more technical register of management by experts. This gradually disconnects people from the many relationships they have with nature.

Nature under surveillance

A shift that the philosopher first observes semantically in expressions such as " natural heritage management " and " optimization of ecosystem services ", in other words the benefits that humans derive from ecosystems. But also in the emergence of mechanisms such as compensation banks and environmental accounting. " Since 2000, the issue of nature protection has been reclassified in economic terms. We're moving from responsibility to accounting. By changing the words, we're also changing, sometimes imperceptibly, the way we tackle these issues.

This change is also favored by the explosion of digital technologies and Big Data, which can take the form, according to the philosopher, of putting nature under surveillance. " We can equip all the big birds of prey with GPS or Gopro, we can put sensors everywhere, but that raises the question of what we're really trying to do. Protect nature or produce total transparency of the world around us, in a kind of delirium of absolute control? "

The age of man

And what about the cloning of extinct species using DNA fragments, or the artificial insemination programs set up in the name of endangered species conservation? The proliferation of biotechnological innovations and increasingly complex conservation measures tends to obscure the question of the limit to the artificialization of nature? Where do we draw the line? " asks Virginie Maris, " how far should we go in this dependence on technology? "

This tendency finds its apogee in the discourse of some advocates of the " Anthropocene " (see box), who believe that only science and technology will be able to reduce the impact of human pressure on the planet. " In this era of the human, what remains of nature as wilderness, considered in its exteriority, its otherness, its autonomy from human ends? What concepts can we offer against geo-engineering projects on a planetary scale and against the current trend towards total appropriation of the world? "

Learning limits

Don't confuse protection with appropriation. Consider the idea that, while we can't do without nature, the reverse is not true and that, without doubt, certain areas and species would be better off without us. This, in any case, is Virginie Maris' conclusion.¹inviting us to " limit ourselves. To accept that territories and species pursue their own dynamics, their own evolutionary trajectory and, sometimes, where we should simply refrain from intervening. And if humans do intervene, let them do so only as observers, at their peril. At our peril.

"Anthropocene" The term was popularized at the end of the 20th century by Paul Josef Crutzen, meteorologist and atmospheric chemist, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1995. This proposed name for the current epoch in geological chronology literally means "the Age of Man". It would follow on from the Holocene. Several lower limits are currently under debate (domestication, colonization of America, industrial revolution, discovery of nuclear fission, " great acceleration " of the 50s). It refers to the period when the impact of human activities on the planet became so strong as to constitute a new geological force. A concept still hotly debated within the scientific community.