“So probably because of the way that these technologies were first introduced to people, that is through Monsanto's application relating to creating herbicide-resistant crops and the inability of farmers to save seeds for patented reasons, this objection to the application of genetic technologies is often co-assocated with regenerative agriculture and with the organic food movement, but there is no reason that that should be the case. And in fact, there is a strong argument to be made that if we are going to be able to continue to feed people, we must be able to alter the genomes of the major agricultural crops as well as significant minor crops for continents like Africa. If we're going be able to keep up with the changes in the climate, the increasing number of people, and the increasing demands of society for certain kinds of food over others. So, whereas I certainly am all in favor of regenerative agriculture and organic, it doesn't mean that you have to be against the potential application of these other technologies.My favorite example has to do with the reef-building corals. So coral reefs, as most people know, are a tremendously important part of biodiversity. They support hundreds, if not thousands of species of fish and plants and microbes and invertebrates. They also are critical sources of profitable fishing. There is work going on now on a variety of different fronts to try to see whether there are ways to modify genetically, both the genomes of the coral organisms themselves, as well as these microbes, the algae that live inside them, and photosynthesize in order to try to allow these corals to survive the warming oceans."Kent H. Redford is a conservation practitioner and Principal at Archipelago Consulting established in 2012 and based in Portland, Maine, USA. Archipelago Consulting was designed to help individuals and organizations improve their practice of conservation. Prior to Archipelago Consulting Kent spent 10 years on the faculty of University of Florida and 19 years in conservation NGOs with five years as Director of The Nature Conservancy’s Parks in Peril program and 14 years as Vice President for Conservation Science and Strategy at the Wildlife Conservation Society. For six years he was Chair of IUCN’s Task Force on Synthetic Biology and Biodiversity Conservation. In June 2021 Yale University Press published Kent’s book with W.M. Adams: Strange Natures. Conservation in the Era of Synthetic Biology.https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300230970/strange-natures/ https://archipelagoconsulting.comwww.oneplanetpodcast.orgwww.creativeprocess.info