With concerns of the current climate change, I feel the urge to reevaluate our conservation attempts to act fast and reasonable while leaving no one behind. The definitions and attributed roles of nature and being natural have been formed in a way that saving modified organisms might become idle. I propose a conservation assessment of species based on their instrumental value without excluding genetically, physiologically, or naturally modified organisms. I redefined being artifactual as being shaped by humans directly or indirectly. Indirect effects are attributed to the recent human activities boosting global climate change. As a result, almost all species are sharing one more common thing in my view: being artifactual. Conservation strategies can be modified by evaluating species for their functionality in an ecosystem via their instrumental values regardless of being natural.

Prologue

In our current world that we messed up with CO₂ levels and triggered human-made modifications of species’ internal balance, we, ‘homo sapiens’, have a great responsibility towards both the environment we live in and species surrounding us. On the other hand, we found ourselves in a very strange situation: the destroyer and the saver. We are now trying to save our future lives that we destroyed before. Our species, ‘humans’, is positioning itself somewhat higher to all other species in nature with presumed cognitive abilities, yet a certain species, ‘us’, caused the deterioration of the natural balance starting from modifying N₂, O₂ cycles to exploiting the population size of another species. Even until now in this short paragraph, I called ourselves as ‘homo sapiens’, ‘humans’, and ‘us’. The challenge here is not only syntactic but semantic. Are we a gang, ‘us’? Are we abstracting ourselves, ‘humans’? Or are we just another species, ‘homo sapiens’? How to place ourselves might become a key especially in environmental issues in a sense that can give us some courage to take responsibilities for what we have done so far and a hope to make it better next times. That is why, I will call us as ‘we’ throughout this paper because we are together in all these.

 

Introduction

In the era of climate change, we have jumped to the stage of acceptance after long years of denial. We all know that these two words have been used by politicians, policy makers, and scientists in many different concepts. Most of us totally missed the significance of life-saving actions such as simply decreasing the usage of fossil fuels. It is urgent that we need to act now to reduce the CO₂ levels critically in air and oceans. Clean air is stated as a basic human right although sufficient actions have never been taken since 1970s. Why? Because we could not force our governments to act accordingly even though rules and regulations were written precisely. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a conference that “there can be no doubt that all human beings are entitled to breathe clean air”.¹ However, I see a problem here. While stating the importance of a clean environment for humans, this concept is not emphasizing enough to be mindful about nature to live and let other species live. Since we have the power to cause mass extinctions, modify existing species and create novel species, we need to value species carefully.² What sorts of value that species have and how we react to conserve those species are two branches of ethical concerns. I do believe both are required to be redefined considering anthropogenic climate change and its effects on the future of the entire world.

 

Species that are sharing the most affected areas can be prioritized against others but drawing a line between those assigned to be more important than others will be another issue. Some claim that the prioritization of places can be achieved on the basis of their biodiversity value although others define the concept of biodiversity nonsense.^3-5 At least, all agree to disagree: we need a comparative measure to decide on conservation while the definition of the most vulnerable changes time to time as the definition of species changes due to gray regions in species boundaries. Species richness and abundance have been offered as a measurement criterion; however, many showed that just counting is not yielding accurate protecting strategies whatsoever.⁵ Another attempt in species conservation practices accounts for a qualitative approach considering the value of species. There is no doubt that species are valuable while types of values they have might differ. Nevertheless, these values make them worth to protect. Even before arranging policies for conservation, it is imperative that we need to come up with clear understanding of values.

 

The value of species can transform from context to context in a way that being potentially useful in future and having a long history on earth might become two conflicting candidates in determining.  There is almost no specific measure to compare all species. Besides, as a decision maker, we have very subjective reasoning most of the time. While we can decide to preserve a colorful flower, we can let a critical ant colony die. To solve the problem of weighing species, two categories of values are discussed in general: having an instrumental value or a final value. Instrumental values imply that some species can be means to regulate an ecosystem so that we need to save them for present or future usefulness. Instrumental value is somewhat local in a specific area. Oxygen levels are supported by trees but their leaves, height, type of roots and so on vary abruptly in different climates, for example. Global climate change creates contradictions against local attempts such that we cannot recommend a specific species to sustain oxygen levels. However, accepting the fact that we cannot yield a preservation law that is valid everywhere, would be the first attempt in conservation biology. Furthermore, I do believe conservation biology should only rely on instrumental value for three reasons. Firstly, zeitgeist, the spirit of time after climate change, is dictating that. Secondly, final value and its subcategories (subjective and objective ones) do not offer a direct path to conservation. Thirdly, instrumental value of species can steal some time for the future of earth by saving artifactual species and redefining artifactualness. I will first focus on former ones briefly and then elaborate on the last one more deeply.

Conservation biology should only rely on instrumental value

Zeitgeist the dictator. I will not spend my time and space to discuss whether climate change is real or not. It is very real and happening right at the moment. Atmosphere and surface temperatures, ocean’s acidity and sea levels are rising unconventionally. This means there will be endangered species living in oceans, underground, and on air because their natural environment is changing so rapidly that they might fail to adapt that. These global changes are stimulating many irregularities as a domino effect. For example, sea turtles’ sex ratio has been affected due to abnormal temperature changes on coastal sands. They bury their eggs under sands and the sex of juveniles depends on the surrounding temperature. Researchers observed that turtles ended up with a female dominant population due to the rising temperature. The story has not done yet. Some concerned biological conservatists decided to regulate the sex ratio by putting turtle eggs in an incubator at a predefined temperature. Interestingly, they accidentally set the incubator to a lower temperature than as usual and got a male dominant population in which fertility ratios and the resulting number of next generations decreased significantly. The traumatic part was that they noticed this mistake 20 years later!⁶ There is a circular path where humans appear in multiple stations. We caused the global climate change. We realized that and wanted to fix it. We broke some parts while we are trying to fix it. Again, we caused the global climate change.

 

The dramatic example outlined above points out that our solution strategies can be a game changer in both ways. Conservation attempts are in a hurry after realizing apparent effects of climate change and finding more evidence and supporters than before. To be honest, we have to be fast to protect as much as we can.

We can think of we are boarding on Noah’s Ark except for having earth itself instead of a ship. There will be limited space on deck. This is analogous to having limited world resources. Selection and preservation criteria should be set before boarding and I offer to use instrumental value of species to act fast and fair.

 

Being an instrument might sound as the objectification of creatures to be utilized as tools. We need to be clear on that we are not the users of species, but nature is. Kenneth Goodpaster discussed this aspect of values developed in a cultural context. Our egoistic intentions might drive us to modify environment as we wish so that the imposed values can have no relationship to the natural functioning world.⁷ On the other hand, the determination criteria, here described as instrumental value of species, does not make us heroes who are so altruistic that they can sacrifice their lives for others. Once we can turn the wheels of the mechanisms of conservation based on instrumental values in a mechanistic way, no other species including humans can intervene with the process supposedly. The concept of mechanisms may seem void until they are defined in a proper context.  What I want to emphasize is the importance of having a recipe or a roadmap in the preservation of species. The mechanisms of conservations could be the attempts evaluating species concentrated on their functionality in an ecosystem via their instrumental values. As I stated at the beginning of this paragraph, all species are tools for nature that play their roles to keep earth functioning for every species. Conservation strategies can be built upon this functionality criterion.

 

In my perspective described above, nature might be identified as a ruler unconsciously.  Instead, I would like to think nature as a mediator between subjects of conservation attempts and subjects of saved species by preparing habitat requirements and imposing boundary conditions. However, we caused substantial changes in nature. Our mediator is reshaping itself as a result. There are two sides will take action in response to altering nature: humans as actors of conservation practices and species in affected area as victims of changes. Natural evolution and continuation of species have been interrupted or distorted during the current climate change. It has even become harder to describe which process is natural. Besides, naturally or unnaturally modified organisms are taking larger place than before due to advancements in genetic engineering. I believe utilizing instrumental value of species can offer a solution to the conservation of modified nature and organisms, but before elaborating this idea, I will discuss the second major type of values; final value.

Final value is problematic. Final value is the value for being what it is.² Human beings are considered to have final value since they are not used by others as keys. Although we are not utilized as tools by an orchestrator species, we still hold subjective and objective values for being unique in sorts of circumstances and being a part of history, respectively. Some think that every species contains inherently an objective value because they do have their own welfare.⁸ Still, that does not very helpful when we come to realize that we need to choose some species for conservation by ranking them in one respect. Objective values have been discussed more with the efforts of Rolston who correlated environmental values with ecological definitions.⁷ Specifically, Rolston claimed that:

“As we progress from descriptions of fauna and flora, of cycles and pyramids, of stability and dynamism, on to intricacy, planetary opulence and interdependence, to unity and harmony with oppositions in counterpoint and synthesis, arriving at length at beauty and goodness, it is difficult to say where the natural facts leave off and where the natural values appear.”⁹

Rolston has been criticized in equating facts with values in a manner that values in the domain of subjectivity whereas facts are mostly related to empirical evidence.² He also took one step forward in describing objective values of species such that each species is a part of evolutionary progress in time with a natural historical value.^2,8 Furthermore, killing or not preserving a species would mean an intervention to future possibilities. Here, he is mixing past and future natural values of species. Although he has a point to appreciate all species a bit romantically, his suggestions are not practical at all in terms of conservation strategies. The value and ethics of species may pave the way for evaluating subjects in different, and maybe, fruitful perspectives; however, we still need some measures for conservation in endangered areas. For example, plastic-eating bacteria can be prioritized against lovely fluffy cats in an urban region. They both have an objective value and cats might have higher subjective value aesthetically. In this case, we can make our decision based on purely their instrumental value since piled up plastics can be absorbed in soil and poison drinking water, which is vital for almost every species in an area.

Artifactualness at its finest. Any organism designed and engineered partially or fully by humans is artifactual. Genetically modified organisms, synthetic species, transgenics, cells edited with CRISPR, prosthetic organs, protocells are in the realm of artifactualness.² With the improvements in genetic engineering, many researchers have spent their effort to modify or create species. There might be various reasons that are both practical and scientific.  For instance, a study conducted on Drosophila melanogaster showed that controlled synthetic organisms (Drosophila synthetica) can be created to avoid the hybridization of genetically modified animals with wild type population. Generating artificial species boundaries might enable us to set safety mechanisms for ‘natural’ species while attracting public attention with the potential to satisfy future medical and nutritional needs. Moreover, designing artificial species barriers could shed light on natural speciation mechanisms.¹⁰

 

Before discussing the value of being artifactual, I would like to stress on evolutional perspective of genetic modifications by demounting the above example.  The scientific inquiry here that is motivated by the past natural speciation events does have a value for continuation of that specific species, e.g. Drosophila melanogaster.

Once we reveal the driving forces of evolution, we can predict the future directions of the species and eventually modify it if necessary. Shaping species as required is not intrinsically considered as being natural but genetic attempts are on the side of species such that in an alarming situation like extinction, genetic alterations may generate alternative paths for conservation.

Apparently, there is still a sort of value that connects ‘natural’ species with the modified versions of them. Some ethicists, environmentalists, and biologists support that being natural and a part of history are essential in value tagging. Modified organisms are far from being natural in varying extends according to this view. One of the proponents of this idea, Preston, claimed that:

“As the effects of human activities on the biosphere become more widespread, the 3.598 billion years of evolutionary history before the creation of the first artefact becomes a better and better referent for the term ‘the natural’.”¹¹

He provided a correlation between human-made effects on the natural state of environment and long evolutionary history. However, this way of describing the natural is not separating inorganic from organic or non-living things from living organisms. On the other hand, having billion years of evolutionary history does not exclude the value of modified organisms either. The presumed value of artifactualness would be instrumental and I will go into detail in the following section.

Instrumental value of artifactual species should be appreciated in the course of climate change

After the industrial revolution, CO₂ levels have reached a point where the last time earth has experienced a similar rise was about 3 million years ago.¹² Before our steam engines, large factories and cars, the natural state of earth set the stage for evolution of millions of species. The last 100 years changed the scene entirely. Some species have been expelled from the stage while their cousins have become famous.  California grizzly bear is now extinct whereas panda population has been restored. We expanded our territories leaving smaller and smaller areas for other species to live. Food stocks, water resources and air quality have been damaged. We are trying to restore endangered areas and species but also, we are not very clear on conservation strategies. To maintain balance among species within ecosystems, we need to understand the modifications on nature and to answer the question that why we saved pandas. Our incentives would be psychological or egoistic such that we have pleasure of fixing what we broke before. We might seek for gratitude of society in saving. We might have our own benefits from saving particular species. Apart from all these, my stand is based upon values of species for conservation practices.

 

If I summarize a point I made before on considering nature as a mediator, I would like to amplify the idea that a modified mediator would pave the way for modified species. Previously, I shared the opinions of concerned ethicists about being natural as a condition to be saved. My position against this claim is to assert that it is not fair anymore to take a modified nature as natural. Especially during the last decades, ecological systems are different than how they developed before. Ecosystems supporting the evolution and prolongation of species have been changed thanks to our technological attempts. Accordingly, species have experienced sorts of selection and modification in their altered environments. These modifications have been integrated with species lives physiologically or genetically. Eventually, modified species have already become a part of that modified nature. One of the most obvious examples is the evolution of the peppered moth after the Industrial Revolution in the UK since the dark color was beneficial in a polluted environment.

 

So, being natural is not a necessary condition to be preserved. It is also not right to classify species being natural or unnatural in changing circumstances. This points out a need to redefine artifactual species. This effort is important because conservation attempts must include the evaluation of all species regardless of being natural, unnatural, or supernatural.

I propose to define artifactualness as a state that results from changes exerted by humans directly or indirectly. Direct effects include laboratory manipulations, genetic engineering, and prosthetic additions. Indirect effects are the results of global climate change.

I put emphasis on indirect ones because of the urgency caused by rapid changes in environment. The endangered species require special conservation steps locally and their significance can be considered on the basis of their instrumental value. Genetically, physiologically, or naturally modified organisms can be handled under the new definition of artifactualness. There is almost no other species left on earth that we did not touch its living space. For the future of conservation, any functional species should be included to our agenda.

Conclusion

The motivation to write this article was to ignite a spark about future directions of conservation strategies. I briefly described a method of conservation that evaluates species based on their functionality in an ecosystem via their instrumental values. This approach does not impose that we are the users of tools in nature. Instead, nature itself has turned into a mediator between us and endangered species. However, the abrupt anthropogenic changes in nature caused a problem of assessing ‘natural’. Opposing the ideas requiring being natural, I prefer to define artifactualness as a state that results from changes exerted by humans directly or indirectly. My approach is built upon instrumental value of species as a basis and constructed with redefined artifactual species in the zeitgeist of climate change.

 

 

 

 

References

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