Emma Marris, Author

Renowned author Emma Marris here talks about her book Rambunctious Garden, eco-pragmatism, and intervention ecology.

Interview Questions:

  • 0:42: Can you give us the short overview of Rambunctious Garden?
  • 1:35: How has it been received?               
  • 2:04: How do you respond to your critics?
  • 4:19: Some people think that in the absence of a clear baseline, we will have little to guide us. Do you worry about this?
  • 5:00: Looking forward then, might one assume that if we’re setting goals, we should only set goals that affect stuff we’ve already affected?
  • 6:57: Why does the extinction concern trump other concerns?
  • 8:13: Some have aligned you with the so-called eco-pragmatists. Could you tell us how you see yourself?
  • 9:51: Do you think that assisted colonization flies in the face of the principles of conservation?
  • 12:45: As author of Rambunctious Garden, some have suggested that gardens should be seen as a kind of recolonization. Does this idea of the garden conflict with yours?
  • 14:28: Are you concerned about the haphazard nature of this kind of intervention?
  • 15:33: If pressed, how would you locate value in nature?
  • 16:37: Where do you stand on more radical proposals for, say, Pleistocene rewilding?
  • 18:20: When you talk about restoring function to the landscape, what do you mean?
  • 19:23: What about wolf reintroduction into, say, Rocky Mountain National Park?
  • 20:27: So, one view about eco-pragmatism is that it permits (maybe even requires) us to pursue many different conservation directions. Can you say something about that?
  • 21:23: One downside of that approach is that you run the risk that there will be significant safety issues to livestock and people. Does this not speak against “experimentation” in conservation?
  • 22:13: If all 50 states have a different conservation approach, what if you have 49 states where conservation isn’t working and only one state where it is? Is this a good thing?
  • 23:27: You said earlier that inaction is a kind of action. Can you elaborate?
  • 25:12: Is climate change enough of a reason to respond to all of these extinction and invasion threats?