Paul Ehrlich, Gerardo Ceballos, and Rodolfo Dirzo / Johns Hopkins University Press / 392 pages
Who better to teach us about the current extinction crisis than three of the world’s top ecologists? The authors of Before They Vanish: Saving Nature’s Populations—and Ourselves, Drs. Paul Ehrlich, Gerardo Ceballos, and Rodolfo Dirzo, have written some of the most important scientific papers on the subject. The book draws upon their many decades studying endangered species to show how human activities are pushing so many of these animals and plants to the brink of extinction, and how we might pull them back.
It begins with a brief explanation of the sixth mass extinction currently taking place on Earth. The fifth one, precipitated by an asteroid slamming into the planet, doomed the dinosaurs. The sixth, in contrast, can be blamed on human population growth and the “five drivers of extinction”—habitat destruction; over-hunting, fishing, and wildlife trade (both legal and illegal); the spread of invasive organisms (including disease-causing pathogens); pollution; and climate change. As we lose animal and plant species, we lose the ecosystem benefits they provide. To cite just one example, many bird species eat and then disperse seeds of plants that provide us with food, medicine, timber, and more.
The authors argue that we must focus far more on protecting individual populations of plants and animals rather than wait until an entire species is close to extinction to take desperate conservation actions. Identifying extinction threats at the more localized population level would enable us to intervene more rapidly and effectively to prevent broader declines before it’s too late. Before They Vanish concludes with a set of recommendations along these lines—as well as a call for empathy toward “all the wild species that have been our companions since our origins.”