Tony Hiss - Rescuing the Planet: Protecting Half the Land to Heal the Earth

In a dazzling blend of science, travelogue, and history, written in erudite yet pleasurably conversational prose, Tony Hiss has given us as clear a picture of humanitys impact on earths natural environment as any ever written. Just after I first read the manuscript of this book, I read a special issue of Time magazine devoted to climate change whose cover story imagined a world in 2050 that had pulled together at last to deal with the environmental devastation we continue to wreak.

And after reading and reflecting on both, I thought, Maybe we can save the world after all. Tony Hisss excellent book helps us understand how it can happen.

Ill take this rare opportunity to summarize the elements of conservation science that will be necessary to achieve the present books ambitious goal.

Climate change is only the first of at least three crises wrought by humanity destined to inflict major damage on the planet. Also well advanced are the growing worldwide shortage of fresh water and the mass pauperization and extinction of species that lead to the collapse of ecosystems.

A second trio exists that characterizes the biology of the three crises: the ecosystems, such as ponds, bays, forest patches, and, on a small scale, tree holes, root systems, and shelf fungi; next are the species that compose each ecosystem in turn; and finally there are the genes that prescribe the traits of the species that compose the ecosystems.

Species are the key to the future science of conservation practice, as Hisss report makes abundantly clear. The protection of nature is fundamentally the protection of the species composing the ecosystems. Ecosystems in turn are built from relationships that may have required millions of years of evolution to mature. Ecosystems science is still in an early stage of development. So is its material foundation. Just under 2 million species of plants and animals have been identified and given a Latinized formal name, such as Homo sapiens. Yet the total number has been estimated by statistical inference to be, roughly, 10 million. As you read these pages you will learn more, but it is true that in order to create a sound, permanent global world of nature, we need to initiate a Linnaean renaissance, opening anew the critical scientific initiative begun in 1735 by Carolus Linnaeus to find and name every species on earth.

As an initiative of this magnitude unfolds, other frontiers will be opened. One, as Hiss mentions in this wide-ranging book, will be a far more detailed and sophisticated analysis of soils in different ecosystems around the world, combining chemistry, biodiversity, and every other relevant property of the living and nonliving environment. A key dimension of such a vigorous, comparative soil science will be a full Linnaean account of all microspecies, including protists, bacteria, and viruses.

Tony Hisss beautiful book shows us ways the planet can thrive. Let the species live!