In Situ and Ex Situ Conservation: Philosophical and Ethical Concerns
—Society for Ecological Restoration International 2004

"In Situ and Ex Situ Conservation: Philosophical and Ethical Concerns." Pages 21-39 in Edward O. Guerrant, Jr., Kathy Havens, and Mike Maunder, eds. Ex Situ Plant Conservation: Supporting Species in the Wild. Society for Ecological Restoration International and Center for Plant Conservation. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2004.
Online at: http://hdl.handle.net/10217/39090

Understandings of "natural" and "artificial" lie in the background of discussions about in-situ and ex-situ conservation. Plants growing ex-situ in botanic gardens are hybrids of the natural and the artificial. There will be temptations to substitute ex-situ for in-situ conservation, believing this to protect the desired resource base. The intrinsic values in plants are ecosystemically situated. I n this sense intrinsic plant value is in-situ. Removed to an ex-situ location, a plant--especially a domesticated or captive plant--becomes something else, compromised in its integrity. Such compromise may be pragmatically and politically necessary, but it needs to be recognized philosophically and ethically as prejudicing the values carried by plants.