My concern is that answering the first question [“why do it?”] in the affirmative may short-circuit the discussion and avoid the second question [“is it worth the risk to the environment and to people?”].”

In other words, you don’t believe that people ought to be able to do what they want with their own property, subject to liability for the damages that they cause to others. Under our system of property and government, people are allowed to have their own preferences and to act in a way that advances them, generally without pre-clearing them with government. Zoos, game parks and wildlife refugees all have their roots in the preferences of private owners. Today, groups like The Nature Conservancy and wealthy individuals like Ted Turner are leading the way in the reintroduction of the bison and restoration of tallgrass and other prairie landscapes, just a private landowners have lead the way in restoring trout streams.

You might desire to regulate this behavior because it might impose externalities on third persons, but in doing so, you are essentially drawing an analogy with local pollution. The scale of the activity and of the argued externality is an order of magnitude different from geoengineering.

My concern is that answering the first question in the affirmative may short-circuit the discussion and avoid the second question.

I don’t hear much about the former question..perhaps the answer is “because someone thinks they can.” Not, to my mind, a compelling reason. So we never have to get to the second question.”

OK, but what if the answer to the first question is, “We should bring in endangered animals from other areas of the world to fill ecological niches that were wiped out previously. The reasons for doing this are:

1) It gives those endangered megafauna more of a chance of surviving as a species, if they exist in more places,

2) We don’t want those endangered megafauna to exist just in zoos, outside of the areas where they are endangered,

3) They fulfill an ecological niche that was previously wiped out,

4) It’s potentially a money-making opportunity, and

5) It raises awareness of the animals and their ecosystems.

Do you think that answer to the first question warrants going on to the second question?

This is quite different from rewilding, which is being spearheaded by people who are primarily acting on their own initiatives, for their own purposes and at their own expense. Sure, there may be external costs, but they are more of the nature of those who burn coal or intentionally or inadvertently release exotic species, without regard or responsibility for the consequences.

While I understand that you might see some similarities between geoengineering and various “rewilding” proposals (particularly as summarized in the press), the differences are very large. Geoengineering involves direct tinkering with geophysical systems in order to have a planetary-wide effect (by university or government-funded scientists or by entrepreneurs hoping to sell some type of carbon offset into a market that relies on government fiat), whereas actual rewilding efforts are much more the product of the direct activities of people who may be thinking big, but are focussed only on changing how their own land is managed.

Geoengineering may at some point involve property rights (rights to be rewarded for a carbon offset), but rewilding is actually underway and very much depends up real property rights now held by particular persons.

At least in the US, although the rewilding discusssions have several strands, including concerns about saving wildlife under threat elsewhere, the chief roots were in the 1987 “Buffalo Commons” analysis/proposal of the Poppers regarding stresses in development of the high plains, which has sparked a 25-year old discission, and ample analysis.

http://advancedconservation.org/library/donlan_etal_2006.pdf
http://www.actionbioscience.org/newfrontiers/barlow.html
http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/travel/08journeys.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/04/22/MN39309.DTL
http://www.gprc.org/buffalocommons.html
http://www.policy.rutgers.edu/faculty/popper/ (click on his “Buffalo Commons” tab)
http://roguepundit.typepad.com/roguepundit/2005/08/rewilding_north.html

I guess we need to first agree on what is being discussed before we can decide on whether we agree or disagree. When I read “megafauna reintroduction” I was thinking specifically of bringing animals that are currently struggling in other areas of the world into the United States, ala this article:

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-hswild184388301aug18,0,5646571.story?coll=ny-leadnationalnews-headlines

…and this Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_Park

From that Wikipedia article: “In 2005, ecologist Josh Donlan, from Cornell University, proposed a Pleistocene Park on the North American great plains in 50 years. Proposed species include the Bolson Tortoise, Bactrian Camel (for American camel), Przewalski’s horse, cheetah (for Miracinonyx), lion (for American lion) and Indian elephant (for Columbian Mammoth).”

This is outside my field, but the cheetah is at least endangered, even if it’s not in immediate threat of extinction:

http://www.african-safari-pictures.com/endangered-cheetah.html

*That’s* what I’m talking about. I’m talking about taking megafauna that are clearly endangered in their current locations (e.g. mountain gorillas in Africa, tigers in India, pandas in China) and providing “parks” that are of sufficient size in other areas of the world to reasonably simulate their current habitat.

I don’t see that as “technology in search of a problem” at all. I think the problems for these megafauna in their current habitats are clear. And I don’t want to see them reduced to captivity in zoos. I lived for several years in Roanoke, VA. Believe it or not, the Roanoke VA had a Siberian Tiger for many years. It apparently didn’t have sufficient “papers” to fit into any breeding program. It was an absolutely magnificent animal, but the circumstances were incredibly sad:

http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/95361

She spent something like 5 years in an *aardvark* cage. (Maybe 30 by 50 feet in size???) Then, at a cost of something like $100,000 a new “habitat” was built for her. But even that was at most 1/2 an acre. She wore a path all around the outside of her enclosure, just pacing around and around. Very, very sad.

Reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone changed the landscape due to elk’s behavior changing, which has a variety of impacts on plants. Introducing chestnut blight (unintentionally) had a massive impacts on landscapes and cultures of the eastern US.

Fundamentally there are two questions to ask about introductions or reintroductions, first “why do it?” and second, “is it worth the risk to the environment and to people?”

I don’t hear much about the former question..perhaps the answer is “because someone thinks they can.” Not, to my mind, a compelling reason. So we never have to get to the second question.