"I think we have to recognize that we're having other impacts on biodiversity, not just eliminating it but also altering it - what it looks like, what constitutes it. I think recognizing that is vital, really. We've created a human planet, a planet that is increasingly organized to serve one particular species. And the rest of life has to work around that, but I feel that there are lessons to be learned in observing how the rest of life is doing that kind of work of adapting and learning to live on a human planet. Learning, I'd say, better than we are currently, to live sustainably on a human planet. Where we're going at the moment, the future does not look very good, and we need to adjust our course."

David Farrier's books include Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils (2020) and Anthropocene Poetics (2019). Footprints ...