Title
Review of Half-earth: Our planet’s fight for life, by Edward O. Wilson
Author(s)
Halliday, William D.
Published
2018
Publisher
The Canadian Field-Naturalist
Abstract
In Half-Earth, renowned entomologist and conservation
biologist Edward O. Wilson argues for why we
should protect half of Earth’s surface in order to conserve
biodiversity. Earth’s biodiversity is disappearing
at the fastest rate in history, and this high extinction risk
is linked directly to human activities, including habitat
loss and overexploitation. And because we have yet to
describe all species on Earth, it is likely that a large
number of species will go extinct before we have the
chance to describe them. E.o. Wilson has led a career
filled with discovering species new to science, so he is
well suited to describe and champion the race to describe
life on this planet before it disappears. But the
goal isn’t simply to have the opportunity to describe
species and learn more about the natural world around
us. the goal is to preserve biodiversity because it is the
ethical thing to do, species extinction has cascading
effects within ecosystems which are difficult to predict,
and because biodiversity benefits humans in countless
ways.
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