Life, loss and hope

With many of the UK's plant and animal species threatened with extinction because of human actions, it's easy to feel downhearted. In his new book, Peter Marren explores our complex role as both predator and protector of the natural world – and reveals that none of us are powerless

- Peter Marren

Extinction is in the air. Climate rebels have blocked roads and bridges, and glued themselves to the tarmac in extinction's name. But whose extinction exactly? The natural world's or our own?

Extinction is, of course, a natural process. Without it, life on Earth would still be primordial slime. Extinction gets us all in the end; 99% of every life form that ever existed is extinct, just as every species living today will also fail, one day. You might say that, biologically speaking, death is just as important as life. For endings are also beginnings. The death of one species may be an opportunity for another. Life moves on and, on the whole, it is onwards and upwards: better, brighter, faster.

All the same, the pace of extinction has now accelerated, and this time the cause isn't volcanoes or meteorites or continental drift. It's us. We need the space occupied by other species for our own fast-growing numbers. We have also managed, inadvertently, to change the climate, and the natural cycles of the planet. In order that we may thrive, other species may have to go under.

But, if so, which ones? If, as they say, we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction of life on Earth, where are the bodies? It's a good question. Britain, for instance, is said to be one of the most nature-depleted countries on Earth, but how many recently extinct species can you name? Our big animals, such as the wolf and wild cattle, absented themselves a long time ago.

It was partly this absence of examples, at least in the non-specialist media, that led me to write After They've Gone, my own take on extinction here and around the world. Extinction is, of course, tragic, especially when it is avoidable, but you have to admit it's also fascinating. It's a kind of lottery: who will win and who will lose? Can we stop it? Can we predict future extinctions and then do something about preventing them?