Edward Osborne Wilson (1929-2021) is widely regarded as one of the greatest natural scientists of our time. He was a pioneer in efforts to preserve and protect our planet's biodiversity, receiving more than 150 international awards, including Pulitzer Prizes for his books On Human Nature and The Ants .
The Half-Earth concept is rooted in research originally conceived by Wilson and Robert MacArthur in the 1950s. Their groundbreaking work, called the Theory of Island Biogeography, revealed that larger areas of habitat support a greater diversity of life in a mathematically predictable way. Some 70 years later, the theory has been confirmed by a variety of studies in different environments, and the basic principles of this theory still underpin the world's understanding of the minimum areas of land and water required for the survival of most species.
In September 1986, EO Wilson gave the keynote address at the National Biodiversity Forum conference held in Washington, DC. Hundreds of people attended the event and thousands more listened via teleconference. The international media introduced the term 'biodiversity' into the collective vocabulary. People everywhere began to take notice of the accelerated loss of species and their habitats. In the speech, Wilson explained how 'biological diversity is being irreversibly lost through extinction caused by the destruction of natural habitats'. He issued a call to action and stated that 'we are stuck in a race. We must hurry to acquire the knowledge on which a wise conservation and development policy can be based'.Wilson spoke of the urgent need for more research and understanding of life on our planet to protect key species and avoid the unintended destruction of the ecosystems that sustain us all.
In 2016, EO Wilson wrote Half-Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life , in an attempt to create a 'moonshot' goal for humanity to unite and work to end the threat of global extinction. Wilson introduced the principles of Half-Earth, which argues that the situation we face is too big to be solved piecemeal, and proposes a solution commensurate with the scale of the problem: dedicating half of the Earth's surface completely to nature.
