The Future of Biodiversity
Sir Peter Crane
- The John and Marion Sullivan University Professor, University of Chicago
Thomas E. Lovejoy
- President, The Heinz Center
Biodiversity is being lost at unprecedented rates due to human activities. And yet the understanding of the oftentimes complex ways in which human well-being depends on the world's biological resources has never been more advanced. Our capacity to identify new species, and understand how they are related to one another, is growing, as is our understanding of the ecological and social conditions required for successful conservation. Whether our understanding and capacity will grow fast enough to prevent a global extinction crisis remains an open question. In this joint lecture, Peter Crane and Thomas Lovejoy look at what we know about species and their contributions to human well being today, what we might know in the future, and how the loss of species might affect the lives of people.