We need numerous, cooperative and coordinated efforts to stop the sixth extinction crisis. Some of these efforts must focus on stopping fossil fuel emissions, integrating green technologies and encouraging collaborative social action. We must also work to actively stop the process of extinction by building technology, solutions and processes that can help us secure animal DNA and begin to reverse the damage created by humans.
De-extinction reverses plant and animal extinctions by creating new proxy versions of previously lost species. Conservationists frame de-extinction as “deep ecological enrichment” or restoring ecosystem functions lost through the extinctions of keystone species, which leave an ecological void by their absence. This idea is the motivation for de-extinction projects: releasing resurrected animals into suitable habitats so as to increase biodiversity and restore ecosystem resilience. Assisted breeding, cloning and genome editing are species restoration methods undertaken with the goal of re-establishing the dynamic processes that produce healthy ecosystems and restore biodiversity.
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One of the best examples of successful assisted reproductive technologies (ART) for species with declining populations is the Northern White Rhino project, which has been under way for decades and continues today. In projects such as these, scientists retrieve and preserve gametes (oocytes and sperm) from populations at the brink of extinction. By doing this, conservationists have increased rates of reproduction, biodiversity and overall longevity in fragmented populations with minimal individuals.
