http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/1152218040

The future of life

From one of the world's most influential scientists comes his most timely and important book yet: an impassioned call for quick and decisive action to save Earth's biological heritage, and a plan to achieve that rescue. Today we understand that our world is infinitely richer than was ever previously guessed. Yet it is so ravaged by human activity that half its species could be gone by the end of the end of the present century. These two contrasting truths--unexpected magnificence and underestimated peril--have become compellingly clear during the past two decades of research on biological diversity. Wilson describes what treasures of the natural world we are about to lose forever- in many cases animals, insects, and plants we have only just discovered, and whose potential to nourish us, protect us, and cure our illnesses is immeasurable--and what we can do to save them.

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