Do We Need Pandas?: The Uncomfortable Truth About Biodiversity [Paperback]

I was excited by the prospect of this book and upon receiving it made it a priority to read. Unfortunately, it was very disappointing and overall I would not recommend it for either novices or experts. Instead, E.O. Wilson's "The Future of Life" includes many of the same topics but is much more eloquent and forthright in its position.

The title of Thompson's book is very provocative and intriguing. It reflects the hard questions that conservation scientists and practitioners are increasingly asking along the lines of "can we really save all species in a world of limited resources and growing human needs?" Unfortunately, the book does not provide any novel insights into that debate. Rather by the end of the book (spoiler alert), Thompson seems to try to have his "biodiversity cake and conserve it too." On the one hand, he argues that economic considerations are essential for effective biodiversity conservation and states that "If ecosystems were properly valued for what they do, there would be no need to appeal to their moral, cultural, aesthetic and spiritual value." Yet he goes on to say that "I find it hard to see why wild nature should not be cherised for" those moral, cultural, aesthetic and spiritual reasons. He also concludes that the panda's extinction "would be a profound failure of our stewardship of the natural world, and would deliver another small blow to the self-respect and humanity of all of us." Yet, at the beginning of the concluding section he states clearly that "biodiversity loss is itself not a problem, or at least it's not the problem." Given this, he seems to try to evade the question of whether species should be conserved just because we want to save them even if they will have no economic, monetary value (and even when their habitats are available). At one point he does dwell briefly on ways of placing dollar values on our perceived "existence value" of species but not well enough to make a clear and compelling case for it in the absence of other econonmic values. This is actually the main problem of the book--it doesn't present a clear, compelling case for answering the question posed by the title. Maybe that's because there isn't a clear, singular answer, but it could be expected that a book that is brave enough to take on that title could have some clear viewpoint at the end. As hinted above, Thompson rather seems to simultaneously critique and embrace multiple arguments which makes for confused and disappointing reading.

A second line of criticism for this book relates to its subtitle: "the uncomfortable truth about biodiversity." It's unclear what the uncomfortable truth really is; rather several possibilities arise in the book, each, it seems, targeted to a different audience. One possible uncomfortable truth Thompson makes, as if speaking to the general public, is the argument that, yes, we humans need biodiversity, regardless of what some techno-optimists and economists would have us believe; this might make some people uncomfortable because it suggests that we must think about other species even when inconvenient to human societies. Then, as if speaking to ecological scientists, in one chapter he critiques research that has argued that we need biodiversity because it leads to preferable ecosystem outcomes (e.g., increased productivity); Thompson seems to view this work as problematic and not providing a solid, scientific justification for biodiversity conservation; is this the uncomfortable truth? For some ecologists it would be, but the point will certainly be lost on most people. Further, this critique of the science does not reduce the effectiveness of other arguments for conserving species, e.g., moral and aesthetic reasons. It's a wonder then why this research critique is so uncomfortable: for any species that we don't have good scientific evidence to justify their conservation, we just argue that they should be conserved for other reasons. Discomfort ameliorated. Yet, no such reconciliation among competing justifications for conserving species and ecosystems is addressed in the book, a huge missed opportunity.

In sum, this book seems to try to do too much and too little at the same time (too many unreconciled discussion points, too little integration, too many target audiences, too few new insights, too few citations for referenced research, all of which lead to too much confusion and disappointment). It reads as a draft that needs severe editing for improvememt (indeed, at one point I double-checked throughout the book to look for evidence that I had a draft version--it seems not). Anyone looking for good resources for overviews of biodiversity science and conservation would do well to look elsewhere.