Team:CLS CLSG UK/Human Practices
Credit - Everton Vila@unsplash
Human practices overview
As a team, we believe aquatic life endangerment is a serious issue and as our schools are situated right by the River Thames, we felt the need to pursue a project which could prevent severe and potentially irreversible damage to the river’s ecosystem. After some quick searches, we saw that right under our noses a vital aquatic organism, the European Eel, was being poisoned by the city's drug habits... and thus our project was born.
Human Practices is an integral part of our work as we firmly believe ethical, moral and social considerations are necessary whilst designing and developing solutions using synthetic biology. The rapidly evolving field of bioengineering means we may not always be able to predict what is to come, making it clear how important it is to research and understand the potential implications that can be caused by misusing synthetic biology. This allows ethical regulation to keep up with the pace of development, protecting people, whilst not hindering the rate of innovation. To ensure we fully understood the different advantages and disadvantages of our project, our team contacted different professionals within the fields of both aquatic species conservation and water and sewage systems.
We began our research by trying to understand the impact our project would have environmentally. This was a key aspect of our human practices as we were aiming to create a project which would bring positive change to the aquatic life in the Thames, so we had to make sure we understood any implications which our solution could have. We first needed to understand how cocaine was affecting the European Eels and the other dangers to this vital species so we spoke to the Sustainable Eel Group to learn about the effects chemical pollution has on aquatic organisms. It was surprising to find out that many small fish are damaged a lot more than the Eels by the chemicals, meaning our project would have a more widespread positive impact than we had originally expected it to. However, when discussing the general issues causing the demise of the European Eel, the chairman of the Sustainable Eel Group, Andrew Kerr, expressed his concern about the man made additions to rivers in Europe. There are 1.3 million barriers built into these rivers which make it difficult for eels to swim up and down the water preparing for their 5000km long journey to their breeding ground: the Sargasso sea.
Moreover, hydroelectric power stations can directly cause eel fatalities as eels and other aquatic organisms aren’t protected from the turbines within the machine. It was also shocking to find out that each female eel carries around 3 million eggs meaning each death can destroy an incredibly large amount of potential eels. From discussing our project with this organisation we could see that although our solution may not resolve the greatest issues facing the European Eel, it would certainly make a difference within the European Eel’s habitat.
From this experience we understood that whilst our solution may be beneficial to the world and the environment, there are unresolved discrepancies within our societies surrounding information and regulation to prevent species endangerment and extinction. As a team, we brainstormed the issue of species endangerment within society and where the responsibility of protecting species falls, considering our project is not directly involved with people.
As part of our government, politicians have a duty to relay the opinions of the people to those who have the power to make legislation so they can debate the best course of action to take and make well-considered decisions. Due to the fact that power is important when implementing changes in our world, our team immediately felt that politicians should hold the responsibility to prevent species endangerment. However, upon further consideration, we acknowledged that whilst barriers and hydroelectric power stations are put in place when the government permits them to do so, they do have a reason to be there, such as to generate power or to control water levels to prevent flooding. As there is clearly an important reason for these structures to exist, we decided that perhaps a compromise should be made with governments still having the responsibility to protect endangered species and ensuring they fully consider aquatic organisms when deciding whether or not to build more barriers. On the other hand, the chemical issue in the River Thames, including traces of cocaine, could not be so easily placed on the government’s shoulders. We acknowledge that drug issues have always been prevalent in society and that whilst tighter regulation on drug usage may not be the best use of the government and police force’s money, it would also not solve the other issue at play: the barriers and hydroelectric power stations.
As a team, we also felt that education should be improved in order to ensure that younger generations understand the full effects humans are having on the world including climate change, global warming, and species endangerment. Though, we also considered that as in the United Kingdom schools follow a government provided curriculum, responsibility cannot be placed directly on the schools.
Through having consideration of the impacts our project could have and the place it holds within society, we identified who we needed to contact and how we were to perform our research when figuring out how to develop our project. As there is a general lack of understanding of species endangerment within society, specifically of the European Eel, our human practices team mainly aimed to spread awareness of the issue and gain an understanding of how our project would be accepted if implemented. Through a survey we asked adults and children what they thought about synthetic biology and whether they considered it to be an ethical practice. The results mainly showed that the majority of people found synthetic biology (and specifically our project) ethical, but as to whether it was considered dangerous or not, the responses in the survey were split. As a team we were pleased to see that our project was accepted and considered an ethical approach to this issue. However, a lot of those who responded to this survey left the ethics question blank, suggesting a greater discussion is required to fully understand the ethics of synthetic biology and make a decision as to whether it is dangerous or not. Many people also gave personal comments on the matter including: “It depends on individual instances and aims”, “The long-term effects are unknown”, “I think it needs caution but is ethical”, “I think it is safe and ethical, in most situations”.
These responses show that a more situational approach towards synthetic biology is currently being taken by the general public and the main concerns were with extreme usage of this technology.
Overall, our team found that encouraging conversation about species endangerment is the best way to improve social understanding of the issues that several organisms are facing and the general understanding of synthetic biology. When proposing our project idea to the Sustainable Eel Group, they supported our project and could not foresee any issues in terms of social implementation. Phoebe Shaw Stewart from the London Zoo Marine and Freshwater Conservation group gave similar feedback as the chairman of the Sustainable Eel Group did, encouraging our study of the European Eel and agreeing that it is an important organism and the issues it faces need to be addressed.