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WELCOME to the New Pangaea, a virtual supercontinent created by globalised human society. Able to hitch-hike on boats and planes, land species are no longer constrained by the oceans and can turn up anywhere and everywhere. Does that excite or appal you?

If the political world is divided between the globalisers and the localisers, so too is environmental thinking. And never more so than in these two compelling tracts.

In , ecologist Chris Thomas says that we are witnessing a virtual recreation of the single continent that dominated the planet until 175 million years ago. The subtitle to his book invites us to celebrate how 鈥渘ature is thriving鈥�, rather than buckling under the strain, with extinctions more than compensated for by a sudden upsurge in evolution, driven by globetrotting migrant species.

On the other side of the environmental aisle is , a series of touchingly written, but deeply pessimistic essays. Here, former eco-activist Paul Kingsnorth retreats into a world of nativist angst, offering an extreme version of the environmental longing to protect what is local, whether it is an endangered species or a traditional way of living. He mourns 鈥渢he breaking of the link between people and places鈥�.

Both authors have been on a long road. In 2004, as a young ecologist, Thomas made that up to a third of species would die out due to climate change. He stands by that apocalyptic forecast, but now reckons the plus side is even bigger. While most ecologists bemoan the sixth great extinction in the planet鈥檚 history, Thomas says we are also 鈥渙n the brink of a sixth major genesis of new life鈥�.

鈥淥bsessed with such global issues as climate change, modern eco-activists are detached from nature鈥�

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At almost the same time as Thomas was predicting ecological meltdown, Kingsnorth was an itinerant eco-reporter, responsible for a memorable book on the antiglobalisation movement, One No, Many Yeses. He chronicled a globalised response to corporate takeover, writing: 鈥淥ur job now is to call for everything we want, as loudly as we can 鈥� and to keep calling until we get it.鈥�

But now he rails against modern eco-activists and what he sees as their obsession with global issues such as climate change. They have become detached from nature, he says. Kingsnorth seeks salvation on a small patch where he plants trees and grows crops.

Like Kingsnorth, Thomas has a patch of land. But he celebrates not its pristine wildness, but its dynamism and diversity. His corner of the Vale of York is replete with species moving in and moving on: 鈥渙pportunists of the Anthropocene鈥�, he calls them. He sees this not as evidence of an alien invasive force crushing nature, but as the essence of evolution. It is nature鈥檚 response to human activity and climate change.

For Kingsnorth, who mourns the loss of 鈥渢he small and local, the traditional and the distinctive鈥�, change is almost universally bad. For Thomas, change is good: it is about renewal.

Thomas isn鈥檛 an unthinking optimist. He charts unflinchingly the four massive human impacts on the planet: our hunting to extinction of megafauna; our destruction of habitat; climate change; and biological invasions. But in each case, he dismisses the idea that all is decline and loss. Almost anywhere you look on this supposedly blasted landscape, there are now more species than ever, says Thomas. Yes, there have been some extinctions, but in most places the losses have been overwhelmed by new arrivals.

鈥淎n inexorable march of the world鈥檚 wildlife is under way,鈥� Thomas writes. 鈥淲e are in the middle of the biggest biological pile-up in world history.鈥� For him, we are reuniting Pangaea. We should embrace it, he says.

His flowing narrative is rich in stories of his fieldwork round the world (he is an evolutionary biologist at the University of York, UK). He details its lessons about how nature and humans coexist everywhere, and how what we often presume to be pristine rainforest or grassland turns out to be nature鈥檚 response to some past human invasion.

Of course, as he acknowledges, an increased local species-count might go hand in hand with lost biodiversity at the global level. Many experts do fear the great homogenisation of nature, a world taken over by a few mongrel and ubiquitous species 鈥� brown rats and house sparrows, superweeds and cultivated crops.

Thomas鈥檚 response is twofold. First, that the downside of invader species has been exaggerated. Perhaps only one in a thousand of the new arrivals harms native species. Second, the death of the old creates space for the new. Far from dousing biodiversity, he finds compelling evidence that our virtual Pangaea is already delivering an explosion of new species. 鈥淎 global-scale spate of rapid evolution is in full flow,鈥� he writes. Migrant species are changing their traits in new environments and hybridising with local relatives, ultimately creating new species.

Hybrids are the norm today. Japanese and European deer happily interbreed in the Scottish glens. In much of North America, red wolves are 80 per cent coyote. Alaskan grizzlies have polar bear genes in every cell. The tree of life, says Thomas, is actually a tangled bush.

Nothing is pristine

In such a world, the prevalent conservation approach of trying to protect the genetic integrity of individual species is a nonsense, he says: 鈥淧olicing hybridization is ludicrous.鈥� He insists that 鈥渋t is time to stop yearning for a pristine, wild world鈥�. And he rubbishes the Arcadian fantasies of nostalgists like Kingsnorth. There is nothing pristine and there never was. There is no 鈥渙ught to be鈥� state of the world.

For me, this a profoundly optimistic vision. And it has important practical lessons for even the most pessimistic conservationist. A conservation movement that snuffs out every newly arriving species is stifling the very evolution that will be nature鈥檚 salvation. This is especially true in a world of climate change, where many species have no alternative but to migrate to keep up with moving climate zones.

We should be conserving nature鈥檚 dynamism and adaptability, not endangered species. Instead of trying to recreate the past, we could deliberately move species: to revive habitats, to protect species vulnerable in their current homelands, and to encourage the evolutionary spurt. Why not ship kangaroos or lions to the American savannahs? Rewilding is good 鈥� but it cannot recreate the past, it has to imagine the future.

Of course, Kingsnorth and the other mainstream conservationists have a right to mourn what is lost. But this says more about them than the true state of nature. Kingsnorth once embraced an outward-looking egalitarian radicalism. But, he writes, 鈥淏y 2008, I had stopped believing this. Now I felt that resistance was futile鈥� I鈥檓 not sure anybody really has any useful answers.鈥�

鈥淎 conservation that snuffs out newly arriving species stifles the evolution that will be nature鈥檚 salvation鈥�

Once he had big ideas, but now he asks 鈥渨hat if big ideas are part of the problem?鈥� In middle age, he seems to have settled for a dangerously romantic nihilism that is fearful of invasions of migrants, whether human or otherwise. In stressing the importance of identifying with the land, he has become wedded to a rather conventional pessimistic, right-wing ecological trope that 鈥渨e are still wild animals鈥�. A dark ecology, indeed.

Thomas鈥檚 vision in middle age, however, aspires to something nobler, more optimistic, more attuned to how the 鈥渨ild places鈥� of Kingsnorth鈥檚 imaginings function. It is ultimately more human, too. What we are witnessing in the New Pangaea, he says, isn鈥檛 the death of our planet, but 鈥渁 fresh start for life on Earth鈥� This is liberating.鈥�

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淚s our future better than we thought?鈥�