Biodiversity is the 'infrastructure that supports all life'
Jeremy Hance
Thu 28 Jun 2018 11.17 EDT
Dr Cristiana Pașca Palmer, UN assistant secretary general and executive secretary of the convention on biological diversity, discusses Half Earth, a future biodiversity agreement and where to find the money to save life on Earth
Dr. Cristiana Pașca Palmer has a big job ahead of her: planning the 2020 UN Biodiversity Convention in Beijing. As the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), Pașca Palmer is in charge of forming new goals with governments for the natural world post-2020. At the same time, a growing group of scientists are calling for a serious consideration of the Half Earth idea – where half the planet would be placed under various types of protection in a bid to prevent mass extinction.
Do you support the Half Earth model? What tweaks would you make to it?
“Half Earth”, a concept coined by the distinguished professor E.O Wilson advocates that we need to conserve half of the Earth’s lands and seas, in order to avoid species extinction. This idea sparked a vivid debate. Questions that I see surfacing frequently in these discussions ask – “What about humans? And what do we do with the ‘other Half? Could we continue to use the planet unsustainably, as long as half of it is conserved?”
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/radical-conservation/2018/jun/28/biodiversity-is-the-infrastructure-that-supports-all-life