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I viewed Stephen Meyer’s The End of the Wild as having several equally important points. The first is that we have lost something, the wild. It is gone, not returning anytime soon, and it is our fault. The wild is lost because many of the organisms in the world are relics or ghosts, on their way to extinction. These organisms are victims of the extinction debt (pg. 14). A debt incurred when humans destroyed the wild through landscape transformation, pollution, and biotic consumption and manipulation (pg. 19). Meta-disturbances such as global climate change and globalization further threaten the wild (pg. 29).

We try to save the wild with refuges, genetic engineering, regulations and wildlands. These will not work. Meyers cites lack of funds, insufficient government cooperation, and the assumption that people will not suddenly start living in sustainable communities and reduce consumption (pg. 41). Moreover, all of these measure farther the processes of human interference with the natural system.

So what are we to do? Strangely Meyers suggests that we do more research, intensively manage natural areas and preserve the landscape. At first this seems contradictory but I don’t believe that it is. Meyers is assuming, remember, that the wild is unsalvageable. So we move on, to try and save what nature we can. We are animals on this planet too, with our own needs. Ecosystem services are immensely important to our existence. Our psyche also requires a bit of nature. There is value in making sure our children can see a tiger or giant panda. So we keep building reserves and making regulations to buy time while we research and come up with better ways to coexist with nature. Interfering with the wild has been its undoing and further interference will not save it. Interference to preserve a world with sufficient nature to sustain us physically and psychologically is both beneficial and necessary (pg. 87).

The End of the Wild is rife with possible contradictions and unsupported statements. The previous post gives examples of some of the unsupported statements and contradictions. Perhaps some of these statements are considered to be general knowledge. Additionally the reference style is probably helpful to most readers of the books target audience. The general public is unlikely to be concerned with where a statement came from and maybe it even gets in the way of the main point. Something has to change. We have to learn more. Then we have to change how we protect the environment and how we live in it.

Trends in the state of nature and their implications for human well-being took an overview of what is currently known about environmental changes and how they will influence humans. The paper raises many of the same issues as Meyers. It asserts that we are negatively impacting the environment in a large way and that changes in the environment negatively impact humans (abstract).

Both The End of the Wild and the paper by Balmford and Bond took an overview of the interactions between people and the environment. This has raised some interesting questions for future inquiry. Does homogenization of organisms decrease diversity (beta)? What about diversity leads to ecosystem functioning? How do meta-disturbances impact conservation practices? How are changes in species diversity measured? What is the pattern of diversity and why? How do ecosystems services relate to diversity?