From ark to bank: extinction, proxies and biocapitals in ex-situ biodiversity conservation practices

Abstract

This paper takes a critical approach to understanding the social and cultural\n‘work’ of natural heritage conservation, focussing specifically on ex-situ\nbiodiversity cryopreservation practices. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork\nwith the Frozen Ark, a UK-based ‘frozen zoo’ aiming to preserve the DNA of\nendangered animal species, the paper situates the development of nonhuman animal biobanks in relation to current anxieties regarding the\nanticipated loss of biodiversity. These developments are seeding new global\nfutures by driving advances in technologies, techniques and practices of\ncloning, de-extinction, re-wilding and potential species re-introduction.\nWhile this provides impetus to rethink the nature of ‘nature’ itself, as something which is actively made by such conservation practices, we also aim to\nmake a contribution to the development of a series of critical concepts for\nanalysis of ex-situ and in-situ natural heritage preservation practices, which\nfurther illuminates their roles in building distinctive futures, through discussion of the relationship between conservation proxies, biobanking and\nbiocapitals. We suggest that questions of value and the role of future\nmaking in relation to heritage cannot be disassociated from an analysis of\neconomic issues, and, therefore, the paper is framed within a broader\ndiscussion of the place of ex-situ biodiversity cryopreservation in the late\ncapitalist global economy