Changing contexts for Ethnobiology

Permafrost slumps such at this one in the Richardson Mountains will be come more frequent with climate change.
Contexts for traditional and local knowledges are changing rapidly at the present time. Ethnobiology looks at “traditional” “cultural,” “knowledge”’ of the living world and of the human environment. What any of those terms might mean seems to be a moving target. Global changes in environment, society, economy and the political map are all moving at a dizzying rate. Global appetites for commodities create dramatic shifts in the relationships of Indigenous peoples to their homelands, as their territories suddenly are converted into “empty land” which their enclosing states give away for a variety of resource concessions to multinationals (see the opening chapters of Anna Tsing’s 2005 book Friction, an Ethnography of Global Connection for a graphic description of the impact of timber concessions and oil palm plantations in Kalimantan).
Climate change is an obvious change in the world external to ourselves that calls into question the usefulness of the rich detailed knowledge of rhythms of life in locale. In rapidly and drastically changing conditions, the insights gathered from observations of past patterns of timing and relationship may no longer provide guidance for the future. As a case in point, Joe Linklater, Chief of the Vuntut Gwitchin Nation of Old Crow in the northern Yukon commented on the impacts of climate change for his people and their environment at the Northern Truths Symposium held in Edmonton in January of 2008. ‘The Vuntut Gwitchin are ‘people of the lakes’, he said. ‘There are 2000 lakes in Old Crow Flats and lakes are now draining. Land is being degraded increasingly rapidly. There is uncertainty around the traditional way of life,’ he went on. ‘So what good is traditional knowledge if people are uncertain about future? Technology is changing, and adaptation creates stress in the community. How do we adapt and use our traditional knowledge?’ he queried. Theorists such as Fikret Berkes, Lance Gunderson and CS Holling explore “resilience”, the capacity to productively and effectively respond to change, in their consideration of sustainable life ways and increasingly highlight “adaptation.” (see Navigating Social-Ecological Systems, Building Resilience for Complexity and Change F. Berkes, J Colding and C Folke, eds, 2003, and Panarchy, Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems, L. H. Gunderson and C.S. Holling, eds., 2002). The wave of the future....
A new and quite different change in the context for ethnobiological knowledge entered my awareness this past week: synthetic biology. Synthetic biology is a marriage of genetics and engineering to create life forms from basic DNA building blocks that will be little factories to churn out compounds that interest us. Generally this is accomplished by taking a generic bacterium, say an “E. coli”, and then putting the genes one wants into the bacterial genome, and culturing the resultant tailored strain. Some experiments, according to the New Yorker article in the September 28 issue that introduced me to the term (New Yorker, Annals of Science “A Life of its Own- Where will synthetic biology lead us?" http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/28/090928fa_fact_specter), hope to create wholly synthetic organisms—the stuff of brave new worlds, and of nightmarish sci-fi scenarios. As we read on, my attention was suddenly caught by the word “artemisinin”. Artemisinin is the latest best hope in the arsenal of antimalarial drugs, acting by a wholly different mechanism than quinine and its synthetic derivatives, so still effective against those virulent strains that have become resistant to quinine type compounds. Artemisinin is a component of the common weedy wormwood Artemesia annua and was the basis of activity of Chinese traditional herbal medicines made from A. annua. It has recently been gaining prominence in efforts to combat malaria worldwide, and cultivation of Artemesia annua on a large scale has been initiated in Asia to provide a supply of raw material for drug production. By chance, it seems, one of the early proponents of synthetic biology, Jay Keasling of the University of California at Berkeley, decided to focus on a potentially useful class of organic compounds called isoprenoids for his initial efforts in demonstrating biosynthesis in enngineered organisms. These compounds apparently are present in many economic plants and produce both flavour essences in ginger and cinnamon, and the pigments in sunflowers and tomatos. One day a graduate student called Keasling’s attention to a compound in this class called amorphadiene –which happens to be the precursor to artemisinin. Keasling initially was completely unfamiliar with artemisinin, but quickly saw the potential to create industrial level synthesis of the precursor for drug production through his bacterial process. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a world leader in the fight against malaria, provided backing. A consortium is now anticipating having their synthetically produced artemisinin drug on the marked by 2012. Other medicinal compounds are likely to follow.
The ethical and philosophical implications of this development are enormous. The New Yorker article byline says “If the science truly succeeds, it will make it possible to supplant the world created by Darwinian evolution with one created by us.” This is a far cry from the holistic community of beings of many indigenous cosmologies, where social relations and reciprocity characterize relations between hunter and prey, where other beings have agency and rights inherent in their being. Hubris, too, to imagine that humans can get the balancing act right. Unsurprisingly, bioethicists are also concerned by the implications of such perspectives. The August 2009 issue of The American Scholar (page 14), contains a short piece entitled “Synthetic Biology’s New Bugs” by Professor Arthur Kaplan of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Bioethics. Among the questions he poses are several that bear on relations of humans with the living world. He queries: “What is the risk that new life forms created by synthetic biologists will escape into the general environment and cause havoc with natural microbes or other living beings?” and “Is it ethical to patent a new life form? The law seems to permit it, but is this in the best interest of science in the long term? Should all forms of life be outside the realm of patents?” . He also questions “Is life reducible to genetic messages? If a scientists creates a new life form, even a microbe, does that challenge religious views that say only God can create life?” Indigenous peoples, as well as devout members of many of the world’s religions may have perspectives on the inherently sacred nature of life and the rightness of the natural order, and that it is inappropriate, even an act of hubris, to attempt to create living beings. Another question that Kaplan raises deals with global equity: “If synthetic biology brings significant benefits to humankind, how can it be assured that the rich and poor benefit equally?”
We might query, what are the implications of such a fundamental shift in relations of humans to other living beings and the living world brought about by creating novel organisms, however good [or ill] the intent? Do we truly know enough to be sure that no harm can come from these organisms entering the environment, or perhaps causing human illness? Will we respect the miracle of life and the inherent rights of other organisms if we can make life the way we make a chair or an mp3 player? Can we be sure that, if we have the means, we will not choose to make terrible novel biological weapons, or modify multicellular animals nearer to ourselves, or even humans? How shall we value the possibility of an affordable and plentiful antimalarial therapy, or perhaps a fuel source not dependent on fossil fuels against these other possibilities?