I've got a new piece out in Salon laying out some of the ethical territory when it comes to de-extinction.

"There is the hope implicit in the possibility of de-extinction that it will help humanity avert the environmental apocalypse that extreme biodiversity loss threatens. De-extinction pioneers are eager to invest their efforts with a deeper moral purpose, one that suggests the power to bring back species could mitigate humanity’s liability in the ongoing Sixth Great Extinction, and even work to correct past crimes against the planet. “Humans have made a huge hole in nature, we have the ability, maybe the moral obligation, to repair that damage,” said environmentalist Stuart Brand, former editor of the 1960s back-to-the-land guide Whole Earth Catalog, and co-founder of the Revive and Restore Foundation.

To date, de-extinction has received a lot of breathless publicity but very little critical debate. The question that remains unanswered is whether it could become a useful conservation tool for the thousands of species that are endangered and facing extinction today. In fact, it is possible that these advances could have the opposite effect, putting endangered species at greater risk."

Read it here!