Abstract: This article began as a book review of William Stolzenburg’s Rat Island (Bloomsbury 2011). However, the narrative of past misdeeds as the backdrop to the current extinction crisis juxtaposed with my own experience of trying to conserve habitats as a local councillor, inevitably pitted the culpability of the present generation of middle England against that of ancient peoples exploring untrammelled lands; it asks whether lessons will ever be learnt and what if anything can be done to turn extinction’s tide.
Download article as PDF: ECOS 33-2-46 Rat Island