A Criminology of Extinction: Biodiversity, extreme consumption and the vanity of species resurrection

This article explores an issue pertaining to the commodification of nature and related market processes—reviving extinct species. It begins by offering an overview of the aesthetic, economic, scientific and ethical reasons to preserve biological diversity. The article then considers how and why biological diversity is actually being reduced at an unprecedented rate—the ways in which, and the explanations for why, human acts and omissions are directly and indirectly, separately and synergistically, causing extinctions—quite possibly of species that we do not even know exist. From here, the article draws on the growing body of research on resurrecting species—a process known as de-extinction—to contemplate the questions raised about the permanency of extinction, as well as whether we should revive extinct species and the meaning and criminological implications of doing so.