Averting Mass Extinction

A Program of Planetwork

There is growing consensus amongst the scientific community that we are currently in the midst of a Mass Extinction crisis, with estimates ranging from 100 to 1000 times the natural rate of permanent loss of species, due almost entirely to human activity. If present trends were allowed to continue, within the next 35 years more than a quarter of all species on Earth would be lost forever. That number includes virtually all of the primates, all of the big cats, and the vast majority of all large wild animals that most American children can identify. What we as a global society do within the next decade will determine whether this unimaginable catastrophe is substantially averted, or allowed to spiral out of control.

While Global Warming and Peak Oil have entered the mainstream media and mass consciousness, Mass Extinction so far has not.

The Planetwork Averting Mass Extinction program facilitates a collaborative process between efforts addressing the extinction crisis. The main goal of this process is to design and implement the most effective multi-constituency campaign possible for raising awareness and leveraging solutions to this critical issue.

In November of 2006 Planetwork staff helped convene the Threshold/Praxis Roundtable on Averting Mass Extinction, a 3-day invitational think-tank in Berkeley, California, to explore strategies that address the mass extinction of species issue in social and cultural contexts. Participants included eminent conservation biologists, psychologists, media and marketing professionals, funders, and representatives of the religious community, as well as the noted linguist George Lakoff.

Several new initiatives emerged from the Roundtable, including one to conduct in-depth qualitative market research in order to understand public attitudes and beliefs around biodiversity and to identify effective languaging to convey the urgency of this issue. Roundtable participant Mark Bockley, principal of Harpoon, Inc, a branding and marketing firm based in the Bay Area, is leading this work.

Planetwork Averting Mass Extinction Program Director Troy Lush is coordinating this project with Mark, Roundtable participants, and other strategic partners to invite input into the design of this research, so that as many groups as possible benefit from its findings. Troy is also identifying existing studies to further inform this work, establishing relationships with allies outside the Roundtable, and facilitating an on-going collaborative process amongst groups engaged in this work, including the California Academy of Sciences, the National Council of Churches, the United Nations NGO Conference Planning Committee, the National Environmental Trust, Threshold Foundation, and many others.

As this Program continues to evolve its focus will include convening and contributing to events such as the United Nations NGO Conference in September, The Digital Earth Summit this June, and the next Roundtable in October 2007.

Links Page: Biodiversity Awareness News, Stories and Events

Green Man Brand Report - view as html download PDF
Exploring US public attitudes and awareness around biodiversity and mass extinction