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vated by our Neolithic ancestors, when we could be feasting on a "one–
species supermarket," by planting the winged bean of New Guinea,
which can provide ersatz for hamburgers, buns, French fries, and coffee,
requiring no fertilizer because it fixes atmospheric nitrogen.
As for animal husbandry , for the past ten thousand years, "we've been
stuck with the same narrow range of ungulate mammals, horses, cattle,
donkeys, camels, pigs and goats ... often spectacularly destructive of the
natural environment." Wilson thinks that if we had any sense, we would
cultivate the giant Amazon River turtle , which reaches a length of nearly
a meter and a weight of fifty kilograms. Or the "chicken of the trees," the
green iguana, which "has been favored as a delicacy for centuries by
farmers in the humid regions of Central and South America."
But would not the medical researcher who extends people's life ex–
pectancy by finding a cure for cancer just be part of the problem?
According to Wilson: "Human demographic success has brought the
world to this crisis of biodiversity. Human beings ... have become a
hundred more times numerous than any other land animal of comparable
size in the history of life. By every conceivable measure, humanity is
ecologically abnormal."
And as for the greening desert, planting the one-species supermarket
or raising chickens in trees , does not Wilson himself caution against
moving species hither and thither? He provides many examples
to
show
that, in view of the complexity of the ecological situation, you never
know ahead of time what is going to happen. Take the case of the giant
Nile perch, which reaches a length of two meters and a weight of one
hundred-eighty kilograms, thus beating even the giant Amazon River
turtle. According to Wilson, this "elephant of the water" was introduced
into Lake Victoria, upstream from its normal habitat, as a game fish, either
by "Ugandan officials in the 1920s" or by "British colonists in 1959"
where it flourished. But this good idea seems to have gone sour because
"in 1985, a task force of fish biologists observed, 'Never before has man
in a single ill-advised step placed so many vertebrate species simultane–
ously at risk for extinction and also, in doing so, threatened a food re–
source and traditional way oflife for riparian dwellers.'"
As Wilson is heading home from his camp at the edge of the
Amazonian rain forest, he wonders, "Why should we care? What differ–
ence does it make if some species are extinguished, if even half of all the
species on earth disappear?" Why is he wondering? Doesn't he remember
the pragmatic argument he worked out before he got on the truck,
namely that the call for preservation of biodiversity at all costs is justified
by the tremendous benefits likely to accrue from it?
It
is just that the sight
of the remnants of the ravaged forest inspires him to develop a supple–
mentary, spiritual argument, by laying the foundations for an
