"Resurrecting a Forest"

Critics have focused on the threats posed by novel life forms released into the environment, but little attention is paid to potential opportunities–to reconstruct extinct species or create customized ecological communities designed to produce ecosystem services. They may change the public perception of what is “natural” and certainly challenge the notion of evolution as a process beyond human construction.

-- from a framing statement for a meeting titled How Will Synthetic Biology and Conservation Shape the Future of Nature?, quoted by Carl Zimmer.