Conservation by the People

What a wilder, more biodiverse planet could look like, where humanity fits into it, and how to get there.

Biodiversity loss now ranks alongside climate change as a threat to human survival. The United Nation’s secretary general has declared that “humanity is waging a war on nature.” According to some observers, humans are failing to do enough to avoid an extinction crisis. In Conservation by the People, Taylor Dotson challenges the catastrophic story that often gets told about the world’s ecosystems, uncovering the complex scientific, political, and cultural reasons why people disagree about conservation.

Biodiversity is as much storytelling as science. Dotson argues that what a wilder planet looks like, and how we should get there, is not something scientists can decide for us. Rather, we are all bound together in a journey of collective discovery. Scenarios, models, and meta-analyses can help, but what humanity needs most is to nurture the exploratory spirit of our chronically restless species through experiments in collective ecological living, via trials of better reconciling the needs and desires of people and nonhuman species. We need biodiversity democracy.ENDORSEMENTS

"This critique of conservation’s orthodoxies and ‘hymn to incrementalism’ is a challenging, important read for conservationists of all stripes, sure to spark discussion and reflection."
—Emma Marris, author of Wild Souls: What We Owe Animals in a Changing World

"Nature is doomed? Don’t believe the hype. This book dives deeply into the wicked brew of science, politics, and possibilities that defines biodiversity conservation in the age of humans."
—Erle C. Elis, author of Anthropocene: A Very Short Introduction Taylor Dotson is Associate Professor of Social Science at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology and the author of three books, including The Divide and Technically Together (both MIT Press).