The situation I’m thinking of is not necessarily ecosystem restoration. It’s changing one ecosystem to another (although admittedly, most ecological restoration is exactly that). But so the relevant question is whether one ecosystem-type has a higher level of welfare than another.
But yes, some such activities are happening anyway, such as desert greening—and we might be able to promote or oppose them, depending on whether they seem welfare-promoting or not. Since these activities are happening anyway, and usually aren’t heavily politicised, I see no reason why some activism couldn’t influence things one way or the other (e.g. by providing environmental reasons to encourage changes like desert greening, or leveraging conservative valuing of traditional landscapes to oppose it). Are there particular reasons why you’re skeptical?
WAI to my knowledge doesn’t discuss many interventions—they are positioning themselves as a science-promotion organization, not as an advocacy organization. My understanding is they want this to be taken seriously as a field of scientific study, and so they are avoiding promoting interventions for which there isn’t solid data. And this is definitely something for which we don’t yet have good data
I wasn’t thinking about promoting/opposing restoration but about influencing how it is done (without necessarily taking a stance on whether no restoration would be better). And I could very well imagine WAI wanting to advise decision-makers on how to conduct restoration.
I think present and future WAW advocates would fiercely disagree about what ecosystems might be net good/bad, and any intervention aimed at making greening more likely would be highly controversial.
Interventions aimed at, at least tentatively, holding off on restoring would be far less controversial, though. And in that case, yes, I doubt that WAW advocates “leveraging conservative valuing of traditional landscapes to oppose it” would successfully prevent any restoration project. Whatever the incentive for restoration is, it seems far stronger than the incentive to please the few detractors who do not want the landscape restored.
[I realise I misremembered Horta & Teran’s argument, so I edited that comment now]
I agree that people at WAI might have opinions about how one should do ecosystem restoration, but I doubt they would express them publicly because such such opinions are highly speculative at this stage. Maybe @mal_graham🔸 can correct me if I’m mistaken!
I think present and future WAW advocates would fiercely disagree about what ecosystems might be net good/bad, and any intervention aimed at making greening more likely would be highly controversial.
I suppose this is true, given different intuitions about population ethics. But 1) at some point these disagreements need to be overcome—so maybe we just need to take some moral uncertainty approach—and 2) maybe I’m optimistic that progress will even reduce the disagreements on these matters. I also think that a decision will be made on these matters one way or the other, so WAW really ought to make a call about pop. ethics questions and then try to influence the decision in the way that seems best.
But I can also imagine that in other case the decision might be simpler, e.g. promoting indigenous trees in a given area might not radically increase or decrease the number of sentient beings, but might greatly change the welfare profile of the ecosystem.
Whatever the incentive for restoration is, it seems far stronger than the incentive to please the few detractors who do not want the landscape restored.
Incentives will vary depending on the context! For example, the regeneration of forest is actively opposed in much of Central Europe, because people have cultural ideas about what the landscape should look like. So there’s a tension there between environmentalists and traditionalists, and I wouldn’t say that the environmentalists are winning.
For example, the regeneration of forest is actively opposed in much of Central Europe, because people have cultural ideas about what the landscape should look like. So there’s a tension there between environmentalists and traditionalists, and I wouldn’t say that the environmentalists are winning.
Oh I didn’t know that, thanks. There, of course, is still the question of the marginal impact WAW advocates would have in such debates, but helpful example!
The situation I’m thinking of is not necessarily ecosystem restoration. It’s changing one ecosystem to another (although admittedly, most ecological restoration is exactly that). But so the relevant question is whether one ecosystem-type has a higher level of welfare than another.
But yes, some such activities are happening anyway, such as desert greening—and we might be able to promote or oppose them, depending on whether they seem welfare-promoting or not. Since these activities are happening anyway, and usually aren’t heavily politicised, I see no reason why some activism couldn’t influence things one way or the other (e.g. by providing environmental reasons to encourage changes like desert greening, or leveraging conservative valuing of traditional landscapes to oppose it). Are there particular reasons why you’re skeptical?
WAI to my knowledge doesn’t discuss many interventions—they are positioning themselves as a science-promotion organization, not as an advocacy organization. My understanding is they want this to be taken seriously as a field of scientific study, and so they are avoiding promoting interventions for which there isn’t solid data. And this is definitely something for which we don’t yet have good data
I wasn’t thinking about promoting/opposing restoration but about influencing how it is done (without necessarily taking a stance on whether no restoration would be better). And I could very well imagine WAI wanting to advise decision-makers on how to conduct restoration.
I think present and future WAW advocates would fiercely disagree about what ecosystems might be net good/bad, and any intervention aimed at making greening more likely would be highly controversial.
Interventions aimed at, at least tentatively, holding off on restoring would be far less controversial, though. And in that case, yes, I doubt that WAW advocates “leveraging conservative valuing of traditional landscapes to oppose it” would successfully prevent any restoration project. Whatever the incentive for restoration is, it seems far stronger than the incentive to please the few detractors who do not want the landscape restored.
[I realise I misremembered Horta & Teran’s argument, so I edited that comment now]
I agree that people at WAI might have opinions about how one should do ecosystem restoration, but I doubt they would express them publicly because such such opinions are highly speculative at this stage. Maybe @mal_graham🔸 can correct me if I’m mistaken!
I suppose this is true, given different intuitions about population ethics. But 1) at some point these disagreements need to be overcome—so maybe we just need to take some moral uncertainty approach—and 2) maybe I’m optimistic that progress will even reduce the disagreements on these matters. I also think that a decision will be made on these matters one way or the other, so WAW really ought to make a call about pop. ethics questions and then try to influence the decision in the way that seems best.
But I can also imagine that in other case the decision might be simpler, e.g. promoting indigenous trees in a given area might not radically increase or decrease the number of sentient beings, but might greatly change the welfare profile of the ecosystem.
Incentives will vary depending on the context! For example, the regeneration of forest is actively opposed in much of Central Europe, because people have cultural ideas about what the landscape should look like. So there’s a tension there between environmentalists and traditionalists, and I wouldn’t say that the environmentalists are winning.
Oh I didn’t know that, thanks. There, of course, is still the question of the marginal impact WAW advocates would have in such debates, but helpful example!