The Era of Evolutionary Governance

The theme of evolutionary governance is arising often in the public discourse now-usually either in regard to some aspect of biotechnology, or in connection with our modifications of ecosystems through climate change and other interventions. It is a favorite subject of science fiction writers who weave marvelous tales about future worlds and beings shaped by human artifice, and it frames the controversy between those who welcome such power as somehow a part of human destiny and those who see it as unnatural, dangerous and even sacrilegious. In this paper I intend to explore some aspects of evolutionary governance present and future. But first I need to point out that evolutionary governance has not only a present and a future, but a past-and a long one. Human beings have manipulated the breeding of other species and modified ecosystems for many thousands of years-and what we are experiencing now is a disturbing new encounter with an old dimension of the human experience, one that people in the past either overlooked or regarded as simply a matter of improving on nature. This is shaped by a convergence of two developments: (1) a rapid increase in human ability to manipulate the genetic evolution of species and to modify ecosystems, and (2) an increasing body of information about the impacts of human action, especially in regard to large-scale (including global-scale) ecological changes. These force us to recognize the reality of evolutionary governance for the first time in human history-a recognition that transforms our understanding of humanity' s relationship to the Earth. It is an end of innocence. As a preliminary definition of evolutionary gover-nance, I will identify it as any activity-deliberate or inadvertent by which human individuals or organizations intervene in the survival or reproductive selection of life forms, either directly by activities such as selective breeding or indirectly by modifying ecosystems. This may (or may not) involve formal institutions of government. The word "govern", from the Greek root kuber-netes, refers to steering or guidance, and not exclusively to public policy; the actions of a farmer plowing a field or a couple planning a family may have evolutionary impacts. But now more and more of the activities with evolutionary impacts are entering the public arena, becoming matters of political concern and controversy leading to legislation, court decisions or global treaties. 1 The concept of evolutionary governance sprang at me full-blown out of the pages of …