How would we imagine climate change differently if humans could speak directly to animals, plants and the natural world? In The Natural Contract, Michel Serres argues that the Social Contract sought to secure harmony between humans, when what we now need is to learn to live with the natural world. The civil subject of law must be ecologised. Environmental regulation and law have long been accused of harbouring anthropocentric bias, viewing “Nature” as simply one more economic resource to be managed prudently on behalf of human interests. Recent litigation acknowledges the agency of rivers and chimpanzees through the legal idiom of personhood. Yet these nonhuman entities still require human representatives to interpret and speak on their behalf. New developments in science and technology, however, promise to facilitate direct communication between humans and the natural world, through the advent of a “google translate” for interspecies communication.

Bioacousticians use increasingly affordable and ubiquitous technologies (motion sensors, hydrophones, satellites) to monitor plant and animal sounds, ranging from bats and whales to coral reefs and house plants. Studying these sounds changes how the natural world is perceived and made sense of, suggesting new approaches to climate change regulation. Whales have regional dialects, helping humans trace their migration habits, which is useful for redirecting commercial vessel routes to minimise marine casualties. Birds alter their songs in anticipation of extreme weather events, such as droughts or floods. Bioacoustics reconfigures wildlife as sensorial technique, implying the possibility of an integrated interspecies response to the unfolding climate crisis.

With the advent of AI, these data can be processed with greater speed and precision. “Digital conservationists” combine the insights of bioacoustics with the speculative allure of AI. They argue that AI can be used to identify patterns in animal and plant communications with sufficient precision to map entire nonhuman languages. If we can understand what whales and coral reefs are saying, we can translate into human language, specifically, English. 

Ecological Translation brings together experts from across law, science, technology, policy, and art, to develop the implications of digital conservationist strategies. What do scientists mean when they argue that we can directly translate the radical alterity of bats and whales into the idiom of English syntax? No single area of expertise can address the complexity of climate change independently. Ecological Translation develops an interdisciplinary symposium and exhibition to facilitate public engagement with, and understanding of, the opportunities and threats articulated by new technological and scientific approaches to climate change. The term ‘ecological translation’ refers both to the imagined possibility of translating between humans and nonhuman life; but also to the notion of ‘ecology’ that emerges through correspondence of different disciplinary imaginations of nature and the place of humans therein.