Art Ethics Biodiversity

Charles Willson Peale (1741 – 1827), “The Artist in His Museum” (1822)

Charles Willson Peale, “The Artist in His Museum” (1822) American Incognitum

1796 paper showed that living & fossil elephants were distinct species (not linear descent) Thus: extinction is real “All of these facts, consistent among themselves, and not opposed by any report, seem to me to prove the existence of a world previous to ours, destroyed by some kind of catastrophe.” Georges Cuvier (1769 – 1832)

Charles Willson Peale, “The Artist in His Museum” (1822) Mastodon Bald Eagle Wild Turkey Portraits

Charles Willson Peale, “The Artist in His Museum” (1822) Biodiversity Extinction

Biodiversity Extinction Climate Change

Biodiversity Extinction Climate Change Human Population Growth

Biodiversity Extinction Climate Change Human Population Growth Invasive Species Habitat Degradation & Fragmentation

Biodiversity Extinction Climate Change Human Population Growth Invasive Species Habitat Degradation & Fragmentation Over-exploitation & Monoculture

Biodiversity Extinction Climate Change Human Population Growth Invasive Species Habitat Degradation & Fragmentation Over-exploitation & Monoculture Culture

From mid-1980’s

Coined by Walter G. Rosen (National Research Council) National Forum on BioDiversity (Washington, D.C. Sept )

“In 1988, biodiversity did not appear as a keyword in Biological Abstracts, and biological diversity appeared once. In 1993, biodiversity appeared seventy-two times, and biological diversity nineteen times. David Takacs, The Idea of Biodiversity (1996: 39)

U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity signed at Earth Summit (Rio 1992)

International Year of Biodiversity (2010) Decade of Biodiversity ( )

Key concept for emerging field of conservation biology “Conservation biology is the scientific study of the nature and status of Earth’s biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction” (Wikipedia)

Key concept for emerging field of conservation biology “Conservation biology is the scientific study of the nature and status of Earth’s biodiversity with the aim of protecting species, their habitats and ecosystems from excessive rates of extinction” (Wikipedia) “A discipline with a deadline” (Michael Soulé)

Core task = calculation of number of existing species & rates/risks of extinction

No. of species? Ca. 1.8 million known 5 – 10 million?

Core task = calculation of number of existing species & rates/risks of extinction No. of species? Ca. 1.8 million known 5 – 10 million? E.O. Wilson (1993) estimated loss of more than “30,000 species/year – 3 every hour

Core task = calculation of number of existing species & rates/risks of extinction No. of species? Ca. 1.8 million known 5 – 10 million? E.O. Wilson (1993) estimated loss of more than “30,000 species/year – 3 every hour Wilson (2002): 30 – 50% of all living species may be lost by 2100

“Each specimen in a museum is a data set of useful information.” Leslie J. Mehrhoff, “Museums, Research Collections and the Biodiversity Challenge” in Biodiversity II (1997)

Species loss comparable to “mass extinction events” from fossil record

“Hope is a duty from which paleontologists are exempt” (David Quammen, “Planet of Weeds”)

99% of all species that have ever existed are extinct

The extinction crisis— the race to save the composition, structure, and organization of biodiversity as it exists today—is over, and we have lost. --Stephen M. Meyer (2006)

Being distracted and self- absorbed, as is our nature, we have not yet fully understood what we are doing. But future generations, with endless time to reflect, will understand it all, and in painful detail. As awareness grows, so will their sense of loss. There will be thousands of ivory-billed woodpeckers to think about in the centuries and millennia to come. (Wilson 2002:5)

Isabella Kirkland “Taxa (Gone)”

Maya Lin, “What Is Missing?” website/project “My last memorial”

“How can food security for everybody (not just for the rich, who can forget how important cheap and abundant food is) and multispecies coflourishing be linked in practice? … Much collaborative and inventive work is underway on these matters, if only we take touch seriously” (Donna Haraway)

“I do long for an idiom that considers multispecies flourishing outside the idiom and apparatus of “Saving the Endangered _________” Species as “messmates” Not isolated, but interrelated How to eat well together?