CHAPTER 1
Bifurcated Life
What is it that we want? Much of what conservation biology must do is confused by notions of animal âwildness,â and âfreedom,â and even by the belief of a few that when a speciesâ historical home is altered, that species is no longer worthy of interest.
âWilliam Conway, President, WCS (1992â99), and Audubon Medal Winner, 19991
According to conservation biologist Kent Redford and his two colleagues, the version of ecology taught in the 1960s and 1970s presented a world in which ecosystems returned to a stable equilibrium after perturbation, or disturbance.2 In this view of the world, all conservationists had to do was remove outside stressors such as human influences, and success would be accomplished. âWe have come to understand,â these prominent conservation biologists counter, that âthe natural world is not organized this way. . . . The world does not consist of species found only in the wild or only in zoos. They are instead found in a bewildering array of combinations of reliance on human action [or inaction] for conservation. . . . So why then does the conservation community in general, and the zoo community in particular, insist on dichotomizing conservation as either in situ or ex situ?â3
Redfordâs question, posed to the conservation community in 2013, is central to this book. I ask accordingly: How did we arrive at this dichotomy in conservation? Who is involved in its construction and contestation? And what do they think about it? This chapter will sketch the history of the schism between in situ and ex situ in conservation and will describe its institutionalization. Traditionally, in situ has been synonymous with field conservation, while ex situ has been associated with zoos and captive breeding. I will recount responses from numerous conservationists about how the in situâex situ relationship has shaped their thinking and informed their everyday practices. To understand the meaning and importance of the terms âin situâ and âex situâ in conservation, I will start by briefly discussing their use in other disciplinary contexts.
In SituâEx Situ: An Interdisciplinary Perspective
The terms âin situâ and âex situâ are used in a wide variety of disciplinary contexts. In art, âin situâ refers to a work made specifically for a host site, or one that takes into account the site in which it is installed or exhibited, also referred to as âsite-specificâ art. In computer science, an in situ operation is one that occurs without interrupting the normal state of a system. For example, an in situ upgrade would allow an operating system, firmware, or application to be upgraded while the system is still running. Within public international law, âin situâ refers to a government with effective control over a certain territory, in contrast to an exiled government. And in architecture, âin situâ refers to construction that is carried out at a building site using raw materials, as opposed to prefabricated construction, whereby building components are made elsewhere and then transported to the building site for assembly.4
Closest by far to nature conservation, in archaeology, âin situâ refers to an artifact that has not been removed from its original place of deposition. By contrast, an artifact that was not discovered in situ is considered out of context and therefore usually meaningless to archaeologists.5 For example, âin situâ often refers to ancient sculptures that were carved in place, such as the Sphinx or Petra, which are distinguished from statues that were carved and moved, such as the Colossi of Memnon.6 In situ in this case is the place where an item was first excavated. âIf talking from an archaeological perspective, the country of origin is where the thing has been dug from, not where it came from,â says George Abungu, a cultural heritage professional and the former director general of the National Museums of Kenya. âThat discovery momentâthat is the place of origin. So if it is in Kenya and you dig it there, it belongs to that particular place . . . that is where it belongs.â7
The various definitions of âin situââalthough quite different from one anotherâall assert the importance of the place of origin. Similarly, the terms âin situâ and âex situâ are used in conservation to establish a scientific place-based hierarchy. But the use of this terminology by conservationists is also unique in relation to other disciplines. The prevalence of nature in this discourse reifies the schism between the two poles, creating what is often an adversarial relationship: in situ versus ex situ.
In Situ versus Ex Situ in Nature Conservation
The terms âin situâ and âex situâ are foundational to contemporary discourses of conservation.8 Before it was taken up by conservation biology in the 1980s, ex situ conservation was associated with the agricultural history of domestication and migration, and with the development of seed banks in particular. The term âin situâ appears in many texts as a reference to a plantâs original habitat. Its earliest use in the context of conservation appears to have been made during a 1967 Technical Conference on the Exploration, Utilization and Conservation of Plant Genetic Resources.9
In the 1980s, the terms âin situâ and âex situâ gained traction as standins for ânaturalâ and âcaptive.â This was especially true in zoo circles, where the legitimacy of holding animals in captivity has been increasingly contested by animal rights and welfare advocacy, and hence the very use of the termâ captivityâ has become problematic.10 Instead, âex situâ was meant to highlight the scientific properties of such initiatives. In the words of Evan Blumer, conservation biologist and former director of The Wilds, a captive breeding center for zoos: âThe terminology began with this binary of captive versus wild, and then got broadened and softened by bringing the Latin into it with in situ and ex situ.â11 Today, ex situ conservation is performed by an array of organizations that hold wild plants, animals, or genetic material, including seed banks, arboreta, botanical gardens, aquariums, and zoos.12
Institutionalizing the Divide: Regulatory Regimes
A range of administrative processes and regulatory regimes institutionalize the in situâex situ schism and, along with it, the split between wild and captive management and that between nature and society. Legal texts both rely upon and reinforce the understanding of in situ and ex situ conservation as the foundational spatial division in nature conservation, and have regulated it in a variety of ways. In particular, the in situâex situ divide figures in one of the most important legal texts in conservation to date, the 2002 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), an international treaty signed by 193 countries.
The CBD defines âin-situ conservationâ as âthe conservation of ecosystems and natural habitats and the maintenance and recovery of viable populations of species in their natural surroundings.â13 The term âex-situ conservationâ is defined in the same text as âthe conservation of components of biological diversity outside their natural habitats.â14 Whereas in situ is conservationâs ultimate goal, ex situ is dependent upon it, and limited in that it must be executed âpredominantly for the purpose of complementing in-situ measures.â15 CBDâs Article 9 establishes along these lines that âeach Contracting Party shall, as far as possible and as appropriate, and predominantly for the purpose of complementing in-situ measures: . . . (d) Regulate and manage collection of biological resources from natural habitats for ex-situ conservation purposes so as not to threaten ecosystems and in-situ populations of species, except where special temporary ex-situ measures are required.â16 Such legal definitions invoke the terms ânatural surroundingsâ and ânatural habitatsâ as if they were self-explanatory, constructing a place-based hierarchy.17 According to John Fa and his colleagues, âsince the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in situ conservation has been designated, expressly, as the legal and institutional priority. [The Convention for Biological Diversity] and other global instruments and funding strategies . . . relegate ex situ approaches to a subordinated supply role.â18
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)âthe leading international conservation network in the worldâsimilarly establishes the in situâex situ divide as a central pillar of conservation. According to the IUCN definitions, âEx situ collections include whole plant or animal collections, zoological parks and botanic gardens, wildlife research facilities, and germplasm collections of wild and domesticated taxa.â19 The following IUCN statement illustrates the centrality of in situ to the organizationâs mission:
IUCN affirms that a goal of conservation is the maintenance of existing genetic diversity and viable populations of all taxa in the wild in order to maintain biological interactions, ecological processes and function. . . . The threats to biodiversity in situ continue to expand, and taxa have to survive in increasingly human-modified environments. . . . The reality of the current situation is that it will not be possible to ensure the survival of an increasing number of threatened taxa without effectively using a diverse range of complementary conservation approaches and techniques including, for some taxa, increasing the role and practical use of ex situ techniques.20
Texts produced by zoo organizations also show a prioritization of in over ex situ conservation and the justification of ex situ only as a supportive measure to in situ. For example, the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA)âa global organization with more than three hundred members, including zoos, aquariums, wildlife associations, and corporate partnersâdefines conservation as âthe securing of long-term populations of species in natural ecosystems and habitats wherever possible.â21
The in situâex situ paradigm also appears in other regulatory contexts. For example, according to the policies of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Speciesâwidely viewed as the most comprehensive and objective global standard for evaluating the threat status of plant and animal speciesâa species that is Extinct in the Wild is defined as ânon-conserved,â even if it still exists in captivity.22 In the words of an IUCN member: âReal conservation is [defined as] self-sustaining populations in nature. If a species in total is only in captivity [we] call that ânot conserved.ââ23 Regulatory norms thus prioritize the conservation of species depending on their location either âinâ or âoutâ of nature.
Institutionalizing the Divide: Networks and Funding
Conservationâs regulatory regimes provide both a reason for and an expression of the bifurcated relationship between in situ and ex situ in conservation. Another reason for and expression of this bifurcated relationship has been the often-rocky dynamics between accredited zoos and the IUCN. Although members of the zoo community helped to found IUCN in 1948, it was not long before the two communities experienced a breakdown in trust. Christoph Schwitzer works both at Bristol Zoo Gardens and with IUCNâs primate specialist group. He tells me that âthe IUCN is made up of volunteers, thousands of them. And itâs only as good as its people, really.â24 More often than not, he explains, field biologists distrust zoos, and as a result, the IUCN has veered toward non-cooperation with zoo institutions.
Funding sources, too, both rely on and reinforce the in situâex situ divide. In a 2013 WAZA Magazine issue dedicated in its entirety to the integration of species conservation across the in situâex situ divide, zoo expert John Fa and his colleagues point out that the largest source of international biodiversity fundingâthe Global Environmental Facility, which is a funding mechanism of the CBDâhas no focal area for ex situ activities.25 Research scientist Pierre Comizzoli at the Smithsonian Institution similarly refle...