Introduction
Species extinction and forced displacement are both global crises, but they arise from different systems and should not be treated as one causal problem. Biodiversity loss is driven primarily by land- and sea-use change, direct exploitation of organisms, climate change, pollution, and invasive species, while refugee movements arise from persecution, armed conflict, violence, political instability, and failures of protection. Specific conflicts can damage habitats and force people from their homes at the same time, and large emergency settlements can create local pressure on water, fuel, land, or wildlife when infrastructure is inadequate. Those connections require evidence from particular places rather than a generalized assumption that displaced people are responsible for environmental degradation. A clearer analysis therefore examines the two literatures separately before considering limited areas of overlap. The first section evaluates extinction, conservation priorities, and the debate over de-extinction technology. The second examines refugee protection, non-refoulement, deterrence, and the political meaning of the term “crisis.” Together, the subjects raise different but related questions about how societies protect vulnerable life under conditions of scarcity.
Biodiversity Loss and the Meaning of Extinction
Extinction is part of evolutionary history, yet contemporary concern focuses on the unusually rapid decline of species and ecosystems under human pressure. The 2019 IPBES Global Assessment concluded that nature is declining at rates unprecedented in human history and estimated that around one million animal and plant species are threatened with extinction, many within decades unless the drivers of loss are reduced. That figure describes species at risk rather than one million extinctions that have already occurred. The phrase “sixth mass extinction” is commonly used to communicate the scale of the problem, although researchers distinguish between current elevated extinction rates and the formal thresholds used to describe completed mass extinctions in the fossil record. The terminology should not obscure the practical issue: habitat loss, overexploitation, climate change, pollution, and invasive species are already reducing abundance, range, and ecological function. Conservation therefore requires choices about limited resources, which makes the prospect of reviving extinct species important not only as a biotechnology question but also as a question about priorities, opportunity cost, animal welfare, and long-term ecosystem management.
De-Extinction, Scientific Possibility, and Conservation Priorities
Siipi and Finkelman’s discussion of de-extinction is useful because it asks what it would actually mean to “bring back” an extinct species. Genetic editing, selective breeding, cloning, or the creation of an organism with selected traits from an extinct species do not necessarily restore the same evolutionary population that disappeared. Identity may involve ancestry, genome, development, behavior, microbiome, social learning, and ecological relationships as well as visible traits. Iacona and colleagues shift the issue from philosophical identity to conservation management. Even if a viable organism can be produced, managers still need suitable habitat, threat reduction, genetic diversity, monitoring, disease controls, reproductive success, and sustained financing. Bennett and colleagues further show why opportunity cost matters: if de-extinction is financed from existing conservation budgets, spending on revived organisms can reduce support for living species whose survival may be secured more effectively. These studies do not establish that every de-extinction project is unjustified. They show that technological novelty should be compared with conventional conservation rather than treated as an automatic ecological benefit.
Scientific Uncertainty and Responsible Environmental Claims
Skepticism about extinction estimates can play a constructive role when it improves methods and forces researchers to distinguish documented loss, estimated threat, and future projections. Simon and Wildavsky’s 1992 “Species Loss Revisited” challenged extinction estimates they regarded as speculative, making the article useful as an example of how environmental numbers should be scrutinized. Its age, however, is important because biodiversity measurement has changed substantially through global databases, remote sensing, genetic tools, standardized assessments, and large international syntheses such as IPBES. Uncertainty about the exact number of species on Earth does not imply uncertainty about whether many populations and habitats are declining. Good scientific communication should therefore report ranges, assumptions, dates, and categories rather than presenting one dramatic figure as certainty. The same standard applies to de-extinction. Researchers should distinguish producing an organism with selected traits from establishing a self-sustaining population, and they should report reproductive failures, welfare costs, ecological uncertainty, and continuing management needs. Scientific caution strengthens conservation arguments because it separates evidence from spectacle.
Refugees, Asylum, and the Principle of Non-Refoulement
Forced displacement involves several legal categories that should not be used interchangeably. Under the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, a refugee is generally a person outside the country of nationality or former habitual residence who cannot safely return because of a well-founded fear of persecution linked to race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion. An asylum-seeker has requested international protection but has not yet received a final decision, while an internally displaced person has fled home without crossing an international border. UNHCR reported 117.8 million forcibly displaced people worldwide at the end of 2025, including 41.6 million refugees and 9 million asylum-seekers. A central protection principle is non-refoulement, which prohibits return to a place where a person faces persecution or other serious danger covered by applicable law. It does not require every asylum claim to succeed. It requires a fair process capable of identifying who cannot lawfully or safely be returned before removal occurs.
Deterrence, Civil Liberties, and the Language of Crisis
Eric Ormsby’s analysis of refugee deterrence argues that measures aimed at excluding or discouraging refugees can affect civil liberties beyond the border by restricting access to lawyers, limiting transparency, expanding surveillance, or normalizing exceptional executive powers. The strength of this argument lies in treating refugee policy as part of a state’s broader legal culture rather than as an isolated issue affecting only outsiders. Leo Lucassen approaches the subject historically, comparing the European refugee movements of 2014–2016 with earlier displacement after the Second World War, decolonization, the Cold War, and the wars in the former Yugoslavia. His analysis shows that “crisis” can describe real pressure on housing, reception systems, schools, and border procedures while also reflecting political framing, media attention, the speed of arrival, and unequal distribution among states. Historical comparison does not mean every period is equivalent. Contemporary institutions, travel routes, asylum law, security concerns, and labor markets differ. Its value is to prevent current displacement from being interpreted automatically as unprecedented or impossible to manage.
Limited Connections Between Displacement and Biodiversity
Forced displacement and biodiversity can intersect where war, sudden population movement, or humanitarian infrastructure affects ecosystems. Armed conflict may damage protected areas, increase illegal extraction, interrupt conservation staffing, spread land mines, or weaken enforcement against poaching. Emergency settlements may depend on nearby fuelwood, water, grazing land, or building materials when international support is inadequate. Environmental degradation can also contribute to livelihood insecurity and interact with political instability, although the term “climate refugee” is not a general legal category under the 1951 Refugee Convention. These relationships should never be used to make displaced communities convenient environmental scapegoats. Commercial extraction, military activity, weak governance, infrastructure projects, and long-standing land-use policies may produce far greater ecological pressure than refugees themselves. Conservation can also harm vulnerable people when protected areas are created through exclusion or forced removal. A defensible approach therefore combines humanitarian planning with environmental assessment, sustainable energy and water systems, host-community investment, and protection of local rights rather than treating human safety and biodiversity as competing absolutes.
Conclusion
The extinction and refugee literatures describe different global problems that require distinct legal, scientific, and ethical frameworks. Biodiversity research shows severe declines in species and ecosystems while also warning that de-extinction should not displace proven conservation measures simply because it attracts greater public attention. Siipi and Finkelman clarify the conceptual problem of what revival means, while Iacona and Bennett emphasize management costs and opportunity costs. Refugee research shows that contemporary forced displacement is historically significant but not without precedent, and that the protection of asylum-seekers depends on fair procedures and the principle of non-refoulement even when states pursue legitimate border management. Ormsby highlights the civil-liberties implications of deterrence, while Lucassen shows why the political label “crisis” should be examined historically. The two subjects overlap only in specific settings where conflict, environmental change, displacement, and resource use interact. Responsible policy should protect ecosystems without blaming displaced people for complex environmental problems and protect refugees without denying the practical needs of host communities.
References
Bennett, J. R., Maloney, R. F., Steeves, T. E., et al. (2017). Spending limited resources on de-extinction could lead to net biodiversity loss. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 1, 0053. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-016-0053
Iacona, G., Maloney, R. F., Chadès, I., Bennett, J. R., Seddon, P. J., & Possingham, H. P. (2017). Prioritizing revived species: What are the conservation management implications of de-extinction? Functional Ecology, 31(5), 1041–1048. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.12720
IPBES. (2019). Summary for policymakers of the global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Lucassen, L. (2018). Peeling an onion: The “refugee crisis” from a historical perspective. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 41(3), 383–410. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2017.1355975
Ormsby, E. (2017). The refugee crisis as civil liberties crisis. Columbia Law Review, 117(5), 1191–1229. https://columbialawreview.org/content/the-refugee-crisis-as-civil-liberties-crisis/
Siipi, H., & Finkelman, L. (2017). The extinction and de-extinction of species. Philosophy & Technology, 30(4), 427–441. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-016-0244-0
UNHCR. (2026). Figures at a glance.
UNHCR. (n.d.). The 1951 Refugee Convention.
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