ABSTRACT
In the words of Donald Worster, says Livingston, 'the niche is the species and the species is the niche'. Perhaps, then, the concept of niche is unhelpful as a way of articulating a sense of belonging or of clarifying what is meant by nativity. The conservation emphasis on native species as the 'good guys' and aliens as the 'bad guys' can be interpreted – by those who are so inclined – as racism, and used to justify racist attitudes towards humans. The conservation notion of belonging entails, then, the idea of equilibrium from a human perspective. There are insufficiently clear or static boundaries between the categories of native and non-native, a requirement, that is necessary for action as drastic and final as extermination. The chapter suggests that there are good reasons to suppose such action to be harmful to conservation.
