Isabelle Groc - Gone Is Gone: Wildlife Under Threat

Isabelle Groc has done a great service for young people and our natural world by writing this book. She describes the threat to our planets wildlife in a way that stresses the urgency of the situation we face today, providing scientific information but also describing, in a way that reaches the heart, the beauty that is vanishing.

Gone Is Gone was written primarily for a young audience, but it does not shy away from hard facts. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature ( iucn ) publishes the Red List of threatened species every year, and the 2018 report provided chilling news: almost 97,000 animal and plant species are threatened, and almost 27,000 of these species are at risk of extinction.

It is human actions that have brought about this shocking situation, bringing us into what is known as the Sixth Great Extinction. Habitat destruction, pollution of air, land and water, reckless burning of fossil fuels and the disastrous effects of intensive agriculture have led to shrinking supplies of fresh waterand to climate change. And, in addition to all of this, there is the illegal trafficking of wildlife. We have lost approximately one half of the worlds original forests and polluted the oceansthe two great lungs of the world, both now losing the ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and give out oxygen. Of all the mammals living on earth today, only about 4 percent are wild creatures. The rest are livestock and peoplewe are animals too.

But the main value of Isabelles book lies in her infectious passion for the natural world and her belief that it is not too late to heal some of the scars we have inflicted. She is awestruck by the wonder of nature, and she shares the magic of the animal kingdom with young readers. Whether Isabelle is observing dolphins off the coast of Thailand or accompanying her children to release rare frogs into a wetland, her own efforts to protect what we have left is inspiring. The more we know about the life forms with which we share the planet, the more likely we are to want to save them. Isabelle doesnt simply say this. She lives it.

I always stress that every single individual makes an impact on the planetevery single day . And we humans can choose what sort of impact we make. Isabelles most important and lasting message is also the most resonant: if human behavior is the cause of the wildlife crisis, it can also be the solution. Remember that you are not alone and that together we can save precious species. To which I would add: we can and we MUST. Before it is too late.

Jane Goodall, PhD, DBE

Founder, Jane Goodall Institute

and United Nations Messenger of Peace

A female grizzly bear shares her salmon catch in the fall with her two cubs on the west coast of BC .

INTRODUCTION

The blue whaleis goingextinct . I was playing in my parents kitchen when I saw the news on the television. I was just a little girl, and it was the first time I had ever heard the word extinct. I did not know what it meant, but I knew there was something wrong. I grew up in a small town in the South of France where there was no ocean and no blue whales, but I still felt sad and angry. Blue whales are the largest of all animals that live on earthover ninety-eight feet (thirty meters) long, even larger than most dinosaurs. Their tongues alone can weigh as much as an elephant. How could such a powerful creature disappear?

The author holds an Oregon spotted frog, Canadas most endangered amphibian, in the Fraser Valley of BC . Aleesha Switzer

I found out that blue whales had been hunted to the point where there were almost none left. I wanted to do something to help the whales, and I found out that others also wanted to help. I saw news reports of people marching in the street, protesting against the hunting of the whales. Others joined an organization called Greenpeace, traveled in small inflatable boats on the high seas and placed themselves between the whalers harpoons and the whales. Eventually governments listened, and in the 1980s there was a world-wide ban on commercial whaling. But even now whales are hunted by countries like Japan and Norway, which voted against the ban.

Many years later when I was in Mexico I saw a blue whale for the first time. Blue whales had not gone extinct, and I knew it was because some people had fought to save those whales during my childhood and had not given up.I felt grateful that the whales were still around, and it gave me hope that when we care for the wild, other