In chapter 5 of Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World, Emma Marris discusses the idea of assisted migration. Assisted migration involves helping move a species that is struggling to survive in its current environment to a new location with more suitable conditions. Solutions such as this have become necessary due to the issue of climate change caused by humans. It has both advantages and disadvantages but, in my opinion, it is ultimately a useful tool that should be used in certain situations.
The advantage of assisted migration is that it can reverse many of the problems humans caused through climate change. Because climates have changed around the world due to the influence of mankind, for many species, the locations where they have historically existed are no longer suitable. Due to the changing climate, the conditions in these locations are no longer those that the species adapted to. However, because climate change is occurring everywhere, there may be locations that now have similar conditions to those the species adapted even though these locations were unsuitable for the species in the past. This means that we can move a species from its historic location that no longer supports it to a new location that can now support it, thus allowing the species to survive.
The disadvantages of assisted migration are that it requires a great amount of human influence and there are risks associated with it. Many conservationists are against the idea of so much human interaction because it is unnatural. Assisted migration can be very risky because it is impossible to know exactly how a species will react to a new environment. It may be detrimental to the species that already exist in the environment. This effect could be so great that the introduction of a species from a different environment may lead to the extinction of one or more species that are native to the region. This can happen because the native species and the introduced species did not evolve together. This can work in the opposite manner as well. The introduced species may not be able to compete with the native species and may not survive in its new environment, thus leading to the failure of the assisted migration attempt. In addition, although the new climate of a region may make it appear suitable for a species, there may be certain other resources or conditions the species needs that the region does not provide. This would also lead to the failure of the assisted migration attempt.
I believe that assisted migration is a useful scientific tool but should be used carefully and only as necessary. If a species is in extreme danger of becoming extinct in the near future and there is a very high chance that it will be able to survive in a different location, assisted migration is worth the risks as long as scientists do everything they can to minimize those risks.
In my opinion, assisted migration would be most useful in an urban setting. This is because urban settings have had greater human influences than almost any other areas. This means that these areas are much less likely to be suitable habitats for the species that originated there and there has been such a great impact by humans already that introducing a species wouldn’t seem as harmful simply because we have already caused so much more harm to the area. In addition, humans have far greater control of urban settings than rural settings, which would aid in minimizing the risks of assisted migration.
