I really am very grateful for the opportunity to join you on this special occasion and also to take this opportunity to stress that the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, among its multiple roles as a growing powerhouse of science, education, and public policy, is a major resource for conservation of biodiversity.

Photo credit:Jim Harrison

Edward O.Wilson, professor emeritus at Harvard University and author of The Diversity of Life.

Bear in mind that the world's environmental problems and opportunities divide into two categories. On the one side is the physical deterioration of the earth’s surface, such as global warming and toxic pollution. That can be fixed, maybe even reversed, with money and political will. On the other side is the erosion of the living environment by the shrinking and outright erasure of species and entire ecosystems. When extinction occurs, it can’t be fixed, not by any amount of money or will.

The present state of the living environment can be summarized very briefly as follows. First, in the last several decades especially, scientists have found the biosphere to be far richer in diversity, particularly in species and genes than ever before conceived. Second, that biodiversity, which has taken over 3.billion years to evolve, is being eroded at an accelerating rate by human activity. At the present rate of habitat loss particularly in the tropical forests and the shallow marine environments, we could lose as many as half of the species of plants and animals on earth by the end of this century. Third, that loss overall is going to inflict a heavy price in wealth, security, and spirit .On the other hand, the scientific studies and wise management of biodiversity can yield benefits and new knowledge, wealth, and security, beyond imagination.

The immediate human future can be thought of as a bottleneck of overpopulation and rising per capita consumption. It’s a bottleneck that will last most or all of this century but then, at the end of the century or sooner, if we are sufficiently wise and lucky, we will see the widening out again of the bottleneck. Meanwhile, however, data from the best-known groups of organisms the f lowering plants and vertebrates show a continuing high rate of extinction, and that is evidently accelerating. So we are in a race in this century as far as the rest of life is concerned —a race with an increasingly clearly defined finish line.

If we get through the bottleneck, while bringing through as much of the rest of life as we can, for the benefit of all generations, then it will be considered in future centuries a great accomplishment of this century, even as we head for the outer stars, even as we have computers with better-than-human capability and all of these wonders that the futurists among us dream of without, in many cases, understanding the reality of this planet. Perhaps my imagination is defective but I ask, what could be a more noble goal than that?

Let me put the environment and the human prospect this way, in biological terms. The rest of life comprising natural ecosystems —and I ’m compelled to add, birds at the conspicuous apex —run the world just the way we like it, without any effort on our part, without costing us a cent. Biodiversity manufactures the atmosphere, clears the water, creates the fertile soil, and above all, creates a living world on which our own lives depend.

The more that we degrade and destroy the natural environment through selfishness and short-term planning, the more we depend on prosthetic devices of engineering, like gigantic water-filtering plants, etc., to maintain the equilibrium that the natural world provides for us scot-free, and the more we turn this planet into a literal Spaceship Earth, in which our existence depends upon our continuing alertness and ingenuity, pushing the right buttons, pulling the right levers, monitoring every square kilometer, just to keep things going because we destroyed the natural base that kept it that way for billions of years until our own species arrived.

The monetary value of the ecosystem services that the natural living environment provides was estimated in 1997 by a team of ecologists to be about $33 trillion annually. That is a bit more than the annual world domestic product, in other words, everything that all of the human race creates economically.

In the realm of science, we need to get on with the exploration of biodiversity. Amazingly, we probably know and have given a scientific name to only a small minority, perhaps 10 percent, of the species of organisms on earth. The number of named species lies, we believe, somewhere between 1.5 and 1.8 million, diagnosed, published, and given a scientific name. The actual number of species on earth, that is, known plus unknown, has been estimated variously to fall somewhere between 3.6 million, an improbably low figure, and over 100 million species, and is very likely to fall closer to the upper end. It’s been recently projected, for example, that about 4 million species of bacteria, virtually all unknown to science, are found in a ton of fertile soil. Least known are these bacteria and other microorganisms. Best known, of course, are the birds, but even there, an average of three verifiable new species of birds a year are discovered, and that number may rise steeply when genetic comparison along with field tests of reproductive isolation are used more widely using the kind of sound recordings of which you have the best collection in the world.

In short, we live on a little-known planet, and it’s crucial to find out the full extent of life on this planet and how we can best manage and benefit from it. We also need to learn how best to conserve these natural ecosystems in a way that is as acceptable to the developing countries as it is to the industrialized countries. Environmental biology, conservation of natural resources, and the proper management and use of them to help build the economies in developing countries should be an important part of our foreign policy. Economic development of our future trading partners and our defense against terrorism and civil war will depend upon assisting these countries to develop their scientific and technological capacity. There is no better way and no better conduit than the kind of institution this Laboratory represents.

What you have here is the equivalent of growth stock in the business world; invest in it because this is where the action is going to be. Not just science, not just biology —a great part of which is going to be focused on biodiversity and on the maintenance and nature of ecosystems —but radiating out through new kinds of agriculture, forestry, ecotourism, a search for pharmaceuticals, and so on, a large part of what the world is going to be about in practical terms in the decades ahead.

Not to commit to global conservation, to stand by and watch the world’s billion-year heritage go down the drain, is the folly our descendants will least likely forgive us. The protection of biodiversity, based upon understanding it, making use of it, enjoying it, and celebrating it —among the many reasons in science, education, and spirituality —is why the work of the Laboratory of Ornithology should continue and flourish. I am proud to be associated with it, however momentarily. Thank you.

Edward O. Wilson, professor emeritus at Harvard University, is a specialist on ants and social behavior, and is known as the “Father of Biodiversity ” for his contributions to understanding and protecting life on earth.