Professor David Farrier

a generation on generation, parts get lost, the chain breaks, and so it's not this kind of relentless force running from generation to generation.

Exactly.

I mean, a lot of people are very, very worried about synthetic biology and gene editing, and I understand why.

I felt it was a question to take seriously, though, because we are hurtling towards some pretty catastrophic outcomes.

And if the technology is there, should we use it?

Beth Shapiro, one of the geneticists I spoke to, who is an advocate of this, said, well, you know, she basically made the case that it would be irresponsible not to.

And that was kind of my way into this, was thinking, well, if there is such a thing as a responsible use of this, what does it look like?

And it calls essentially back to that question.

Yeah, and the Māori conservationists I spoke to encapsulated that sense of, does this action foster connection or weaken connection?

So Kevin Esvelt had, you know, spent a lot of time talking to Māori and, you know, learned how important, you know, through encounters with Māori that it was that you pay, you listen to indigenous cultures.

who have perhaps the greatest stake in a kind of intervention like this in their ecosystem.

In New Zealand, in Ichiroa, New Zealand, there has been a tremendous problem created by the introduction of non-native species, particularly rodents and mustelids, and their effect on animals that are totally unadapted to cope with them.

One way to arrest this would be a kind of gene drive approach, a last litter approach,

And rather than sort of respond with the usual fears that, you know, many of us in the Western world have about intervening, about, you know, kind of Frankenstein's monsters, you know, unintended consequences.

Cane toads.

Exactly.

Well, yeah, which was a form of ecological engineering of its day.

They were introduced supposedly to deal with a sugarcane-eating beetle, which they didn't eat.

Rather than with all kinds of fears that Maori...

And there are a diversity of opinion, of course, among Maori.