







































Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal 1 (1): 87–90, April 2018 

 
CONVERSATIONS 2: Forest Conservation 

 

Reconciling Rights of Individuals with Rights of Wild 
Species 
 

K. Ullas Karanth  
 
Some animal rights advocates argue that each individual animal of any 
species, domestic or wild, must enjoy the same rights as an individual 
human being. Beckoff (2013) presents a bouquet of arguments for such 
‘compassionate conservation’. This extreme position is unlikely to be useful 
in practice; so, I sidestep it in this brief article. 

Science-based conservation must address its primary goal of recovering 
endangered wild species. However, conservationists are also occasionally 
compelled to eradicate harmful species and even kill individuals of rare 
species (such as man-eating tigers). They must also deal with the harvest 
and use of some wild species. Within such a scientific framework, species 
conservation can be defined as promotion of the ‘rights’ of wild species, 
thus embracing the issue of compassion at some level. 

Unlike human individuals, however, all wild species cannot enjoy equal 
rights. Scientific attributes, such as rarity and degree of endangerment, fuse 
with social values, like utility and cultural appeal, to determine the 
conservation priority for each species. However, modern science shows 
that, now, wild nature needs urgent recovery assistance for our own good. 
Such utilitarian arguments, based on the economic value of nature, are now 
accepted globally, and this acceptance is at the core of the consensus 
around the need for ‘sustainable development’, which includes 
‘conservation’. 

 
 Director for Science-Asia, Wildlife Conservation Society, Bronx, New York-10460, USA & 
Centre for Wildlife Studies, 224, Rajnigandha, 21, Vittal Mallya Rd., Bengaluru-560001, 
India; ukaranth@gmail.com 

Copyright © Karanth 2018. Released under Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC 4.0) by the author.  

Published by Indian Society for Ecological Economics (INSEE), c/o Institute of Economic 
Growth, University Enclave, North Campus, Delhi 110007.  

ISSN: 2581-6152 (print); 2581-6101 (web). 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v1i1.21  

https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v1i1.21


Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [88] 

Population of the resource-hungry Homo sapiens is expected to plateau at 10 
billion by 2050. For achieving this transient evolutionary success, humans 
have outcompeted and extirpated many other wildlife species, and even 
other Hominins (Harari 2011). During the Anthropocene, extending over the 
last 10,000 years, we humans have enforced our rights as individuals quite 
ruthlessly over all other species. The scientific evidence for humandriven 
extirpations, range collapses, and species recovery in nature reserves is 
abundant and compelling (Barnosky et al. 2011; Dirzo et al. 2014; Karanth 
et al. 2010) —contrary to the repetitive assertions of Kabra (2018) and the 
supportive citations therein. 

The Indian subcontinent has a 60,000-year history of successive waves of 
human colonization, each of which possessed greater technological mastery 
over wild nature. Invasive application of fire, agriculture, animal husbandry, 
and—more recently—industry have shrunk areas that still harbour 
somewhat intact natural animal-plant assemblages (not ‘pristine’) to less 
than 10 per cent of the land. These ‘natural landscapes’ now cover less than 
half of even the public reserved forest estate. The rest has been lost, to 
primarily agricultural expansion and secondarily industrial-urban expansion 
(Shyam Sunder and Parmeshwarappa 2014). 

This wholesale landscape modification by humans using fire, axe, and 
plough and by the over-hunting of wild animals has led to species 
extirpations and massive range collapses (Barnosky et al. 2011; Dirzo et al. 
2014; Karanth et al. 2010). Conspicuous examples of such extirpation of 
‘species rights’ by humans in India include the Cheetah, Javan and Sumatran 
rhinos, Banteng, and the Pink-headed duck. Other threatened species such 
as the lion, Indian rhino, tiger, elephant, and the great Indian Bustard have 
been evicted from over 90 per cent of their former ranges, belying claims of 
a prior harmonious coexistence (Kabra 2018). Undoubtedly, many less 
charismatic species of mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians have 
suffered a similar fate. 

The rights of individuals of a single species, Homo sapiens, have massively 
‘trumped’—I cannot think of a better word—the rights of entire wild 
species. If preservation of endangered species is accepted as a ‘moral’ 
imperative (Kabra 2018), it is hard to justify the further expansion of 
destructive human domination into the remaining 3–4 per cent of land now 
set aside as a refuge for extinction-prone species. Some animal species can 
coexist with specific human land uses and cultural practices, but that fact 
does not negate the need to reduce negative human impacts on many other 
endangered species. 



[89] K. Ullas Karanth 

Evolving a societal response to redress this imbalance between human 
rights and ‘rights’ of threatened species requires serious thought, whether 
from a ‘utilitarian’ perspective or ‘moral’ one. 

Many of the assumptions that underlie emancipatory laws, such as the 
Forest Rights Act, do not even recognize—let alone address—real 
problems involved in protecting ‘species rights’. Their human rights-based 
frame enables them to escape this responsibility using unsupported 
assumptions. 

Such faith-based assumptions include the idea that wild species are not 
impacted by the increase in human population density, which is 
accompanied by the doubling of life expectancy; reduction in poverty; and 
the consequent, rising demand for more animal protein, water, sanitation, 
and healthcare. Such assumptions ignore also the impacts of changing 
technology and culture, such as the demand for motorized draft power and 
transport and for access to modern healthcare, education, electricity, and 
mass communication. The promotion of putative, ‘traditionally 
harmonious’ coexistence of threatened (and, sometimes, dangerous) animal 
species with societies under such market-linked demographic transitions, 
inside 4 per cent of land designated for wildlife protection, is unlikely to 
enhance the welfare of either. 

Another formula employed to avoid the contradictions between achieving 
human emancipation and nature conservation has been the mantra of 
‘sustainable development’, which no one can criticize prima facie. 
Conservation thinker John Robinson (1993) has robustly critiqued its 
underlying conflation of ‘conservation’ (saving other species) with 
‘development’ (making life better for our own species) and its ignoring 
inherent contradictions. I think his alternative proposal (Robinson 1993) for 
‘sustainable landscapes’ offers a better framework to address these all-too-
real contradictions. The scheme is formulated for terrestrial habitats and 
argues for setting aside and spatially separating landscapes for (1) strict 
nature protection, (2) non-intensive uses at low human densities, and (3) 
intensive agriculture and industry. 

Undoubtedly, application of the ‘sustainable landscapes’ model to specific 
countries and regions will present many scientific challenges, and depend 
on evolving social and political consensuses at the right spatial scales. 
Nevertheless, I believe such an approach is more likely to work than the 
options of a Luddite escape into an imagined past or an uncritical 
conflation of ‘conservation’ and ‘development’. 

The concept of sustainable landscapes stands firmly on defensible science. 
It does not wish away social aspirations for economic and technological 



Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [90] 

progress. Hopefully, it can mediate better than other proposed alternatives, 
between the conflicting rights of wild species and individual humans. 

 

REFERENCES 

Barnosky, Anthony D., Nicholas Matzke, Susumu Tomiya, Guinevere O. U. 
Wogan, Brian Swartz, Tiago B. Quental, Charles Marshall, Jenny L. McGuire, 
Emily L. Lindsey, Kaitlin C. Maguire, Ben Mersey and Elizabeth A. Ferrer. 2011. 
“Has the Earth’s sixth mass extinction already arrived?” Nature 471: 51–57. 
https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09678 

Bekoff, Marc,.ed. 2013. Ignoring nature no more: The case for compassionate conservation. 
Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 
https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226925363.001.0001 

Dirzo, R., Hillary S. Young, Mauro Galetti, Gerardo Ceballos, Nick J. B. Isaac and 
Ben Collen. 2014. “Defaunation in the anthropocene.” Science 345: 401–406. 
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1251817 

Harari Y.N. 2011. Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. London: Vintage Books. 

Kabra, A. 2018. “Revisiting canons and dogmas in the conservation-versus-human 
welfare debate.” Ecology, Economy and Society 1 (1): 83-86. 
https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v1i1.20  

Karanth Krithi K., James D. Nichols, K. Ullas Karanth, James E. Hines and 
Norman L. Christensen, Jr.2010. “The Shrinking Ark: Patterns of large mammal 
extinctions in India.” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, B: Biological Sciences 277: 
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Robinson J.G. 1993. “Limits to Caring: sustainable living and the loss of 
biodiversity.” Conservation Biology 7: 20–28. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1523-
1739.1993.07010020.x 

Shyam Sunder S. and Parameswarappa S. 2014. Forest conservation concerns in India. 
Dehra Dun: M/s Bishen Singh Mahendra Pal Singh. 

https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09678
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https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v1i1.20
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