Rarities - by Zoe Nyssa (Paperback)

About the Book

"A sweeping study that reveals how conservation science does more than simply protect by inadvertently making nature valuable in new ways. Climate change and other environmental transformations are causing species to go extinct at accelerating rates. What, then, should a science of saving nature look like? In Rarities, Zoe Nyssa traces how conservation emerged as a distinct scientific endeavor in the United States over the twentieth century and how this history has shaped environmental research practices and policy today. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research with leading conservation labs and programs, Nyssa explores how conservation science appears to generate contradictory, even counterintuitive, results, as scientists, policymakers, and the public all take up, respond to, and repurpose scientists' ideas about rarity, vulnerability, and endangerment. The designation of new nature reserves can lead to increased poaching and habitat destruction. The listing of a species as endangered fuels their black-market consumption as pets, food, or luxury items. Protection of natural resources can push resource extraction into unprotected areas. Other effects are less simple to calculate; persuading the public to care about one species might siphon support for another, and paying for one kind of conservation behavior can discourage other forms of conservation activity. The science of saving nature spans a century of work by ecologists and others to develop a scientific basis for conservation. Yet Nyssa shows how their efforts to understand the natural world in terms of endangerment and extinction unleashed new ways for nonscientists to experience and understand nature as well. The scientific values that emerge, she argues, can transform the complex interconnections between human and nonhuman life. Rarities offers a framework for understanding these surprising socioecological dynamics and why they matter, both for contemporary science and for the planet"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

A sweeping study that reveals how conservation science does more than simply protect by inadvertently making nature valuable in new ways.

Climate change and other environmental transformations are causing species to go extinct at accelerating rates. What, then, should a science of saving nature look like? In Rarities, Zoe Nyssa traces how conservation emerged as a distinct scientific endeavor in the United States over the twentieth century and how this history has shaped environmental research practices and policy today. Drawing on archival and ethnographic research with leading conservation labs and programs, Nyssa explores how conservation science appears to generate contradictory, even counterintuitive, results as scientists, policymakers, and the public all take up, respond to, and repurpose scientists' ideas about rarity, vulnerability, and endangerment. The designation of new nature reserves can lead to increased poaching and habitat destruction. The listing of a species as endangered fuels their black-market consumption as pets, food, or luxury items. Protection of natural resources can push resource extraction into unprotected areas. Other effects are less simple to calculate; persuading the public to care about one species might siphon support for another, and paying for one kind of conservation behavior can discourage other forms of conservation activity.

The science of saving nature spans a century of work by ecologists and others to develop a scientific basis for conservation. Yet Nyssa shows how their efforts to understand the natural world in terms of endangerment and extinction unleashed new ways for nonscientists to experience and understand nature as well. The scientific values that emerge, she argues, can transform the complex interconnections between human and nonhuman life. Rarities offers a framework for understanding these surprising socio-ecological dynamics and why they matter, both for contemporary science and for the planet.

Review Quotes

"Rarities is itself a rarity--a book that combines deeply researched history with theoretically sophisticated analysis and contemporary relevance. Readers will come away with a deeper understanding of the history of environmental sciences writ large, as well as an (at times uncomfortable) need to reckon with the complexities of environmental conservation."

--Kristoffer Whitney, Rochester Institute of Technology

"In Rarities, Nyssa shows us how to see conservation differently--not as preserving that which is endangered, but as crafting our relations with the natural world. Through deep historical and ethnographic research, she demonstrates how conservation science and practice reflect the complicated, even contradictory, ways that we value life and asks us to think anew about the power of science in shaping our collective future."

--Gwen Ottinger, author of "Refining Expertise: How Responsible Engineers Subvert Environmental Justice Challenges"

"Nyssa has written a rare and necessary book that asks us to sit with the profound ethical, political, and ecological tensions at the heart of conservation science. Rarities illuminates how our ways of knowing and valuing the natural world can both sustain and imperil it, revealing the unintended consequences that shape life in the Anthropocene. With clarity, rigor, and deep care, Nyssa invites us to rethink what it means to protect the more-than-human world and the human communities who have historically sustained it. This is essential reading for anyone committed to imagining more just and life-affirming futures."--Paige West, author of "Dispossession and the Environment: Rhetoric and Inequality in Papua New Guinea"

About the Author

Zoe Nyssa is associate professor of anthropology at Purdue University.