De-Extinction Debate: Should Extinct Species Be Revived?

Last month, hundreds of experts who study human-environment interactions called on policymakers to take immediate action to curb humanity’s ecologically destructive ways. Accelerating trends of human-driven extinction, ecosystem loss, climate change, pollution, and consumption, the scientists wrote in a consensus statement, “are threatening the life-support systems upon which we all depend.”

If current rates of extinction continue, the statement warns, we could see the loss of 75 percent of vertebrate species within three centuries.

As conservation scientists struggle to stem the catastrophic loss of biodiversity, some synthetic biologists are working to bring extinct species back to life. You might think the two groups would be working together. But until recently, most conservation biologists knew little of the so-called “Revive and Restore” movement, which until the TEDxDeExtinction conference in March, had been meeting largely behind closed doors.

Following a private meeting of “de-extinction” pioneers at Harvard Medical School last February, the National Geographic Society and San Francisco’s Long Now Foundation brought molecular biologists and conservation biologists together in October to discuss strategies for resurrecting extinct species. The organizers admitted...