The Race Against Extinction

What can one person do to halt the alarming increase in biodiversity loss?

You can join the Ecolympics. You can act on the suggestions in our blog.

And you can put your boots to the ground and join the Race Against Extinction, a 5K race this Sunday starting at Artesani Park in Boston.

Jeff Neterval started the race in 2008 thanks to his daughter's passion for animal's and E.O. Wilson's The Future of Life, which he read in 2001. Jeff writes that "Professor Wilson's calculation and message then that for $30 billion humankind could preserve over 70% of the world's species by conserving a number of our planet's biodiversity 'hot spots' was the inspiration."

Their mission is to both "raise awareness for preserving our planet's precious biodiversity and raise funds for organizations such as Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund to help them with their conservation efforts".

"Oh yeah," Jeff adds, "we also want to do this while having a good time!"

Jeff and his group held the first Race Against Extinction 5K on Earth Day in 2008 as an informal experiment (no permit) along the Charles along the Esplanade. It was a cold rainy week night. They managed to muster 8 participants. Proceeds were delivered to The Nature Conservancy. The original 8 and friends made along the way organized the second annual Race Against Extinction on April 17, 2010. They registered over 150 participants and raised approximately $8000 combined with a matching program for the World Wildlife Fund's Year of the Tiger campaign.

Jeff isn't kidding when he talks about having fun while doing this. The Race Against Extinction

even has a guy crazy enough to have run marathons dressed as a polar bear to help promote the cause... Last year, the polar bear ran the full Chicago Marathon in 87 degree weather. Now that's being committed to your cause!

This year, Jeff has had no outside sponsors and has funded the race himself. He's up against two big scheduling events too: Palm Sunday and the Boston marathon's popular 5k event. But willing participants will be recognized with protecting an acre of rain forest on Conservation International's Protect an Acre of rain forest.

Habitat fragmentation and deforestation are two of the main causes of the present biodiversity crisis, so protecting an acre of rain forest is an excellent and tangible way to do something positive for endangered species. I personally love the idea of being able to peer down into the Amazon on Google Earth and know that I helped to protect an acre.

It's amazing what one person can do: one person can organize a race that gets dozens of other people out for the same cause. I'll be there on Sunday. What about you -- ready to lace up your shoes and join the Race Against Extinction?

E.O. Wilson Lecture on a Plan to Save Earth's Biodiversity

Harvard naturalist E.O. Wilson has done much to educate us about Earth’s biodiversity and the present mass extinction, particularly with his popular books, The Diversity of Life and The Future of Life . He is a terrific writer, who has twice won the Pulitzer Prize and is notably optimistic about our ability to overcome the problem of species loss.

Here he delivers a lecture at MIT about a plan to save Earth’s biodiversity. The lecture is over an hour – but it’s spring break so you have time -- and you can scroll down the text on the right hand side and see the highlights. The punchline? I’ll give you a hint. His plan costs a fraction of the recent bank bailout of $700 billion. One wonders what we’re waiting for…

Welcome to the International Year of Forests

We're back. After a too long hiatus, we're gearing up for the 2nd Annual Ecolympics hosted by the Core Curriculum at Boston University. This year we're running the events for two weeks, April 1 -- 15 and looking for a bigger impact. Naturally, it's you our participants who are going to determine how big our impact can be, so we're counting on you.

We got the Ecolympics going last year to raise awareness about the human impact on the environment and the consequent species loss. The problem of species loss is so severe -- Harvard naturalist E.O. Wilson has said that 30,000 species are going extinct every year -- that last year was decreed the International Year of Biodiversity. One result was the Nagoya Protocol, where nations agreed to halve biodiversity loss by 2020, increase the percentage of protected lands from 12.5 to 17% and increase the percentage of protected oceans from less than 1% to 10%. Making this happen is going to take a commitment from all of us.

This year is the International Year of Forests and Yann Arthus-Bertrand, who directed the compelling eco-documentary Home (and put it online, gratis) has prepared a visually stunning short film to summarize the importance of forests. Here, also, is a collection of some endangered forests around the world, from which the above photos are taken.

We're now in the planning stages for this year's Ecolympics. Along with our main Ecolympics activities, we're aiming to again feature vegetarian cooking classes and film nights as well as some new events like hosting sustainability seminars, going on local hikes and possibly tree

planting. If you're at BU and want to get involved, do get in touch. If you're beyond BU and want to get involved, also get in touch! We want to make a bigger, longer-lasting impact this year and we can do that with your help.

Daniel

Welcome to the Ecolympics Blog!

Greetings fellow Ecolympians! If you've seen our FAQ you know what we're about. Here's a brief summary: this is the UN's International Year of Biodiversity, which, as they say here, "is a celebration of life on earth and of the value of biodiversity for our lives. The world is invited to take action in 2010 to safeguard the variety of life on earth: biodiversity".

“Biodiversity” refers to the diversity of plant and animal life in an ecosystem or in the world as a whole. Unfortunately, Earth’s biodiversity is now suffering losses at accelerating and historic rates due primarily to human activities. These activities include pollution, habitat loss and introduction of invasive species and the loss will be exacerbated by climate change.

So, the Ecolympics are designed as a series of fun, self-run events to help us all become aware of the human impact on our environment. They are sponsored by the College of Arts and Science's Core Curriculum here at Boston University. But anyone can participate. Our prizes are limited to present Boston University people, but we hope that wherever you are in the world, you'll sign-up and participate. In fact, we hope any participant anywhere will take our oath (at the bottom of the sign-up page) to heart and challenge friends to participate, creating their own prizes in the process.

Biodiversity loss is a global problem that, simply put, can only be bad news for humans. Scientists have catalogued some 1.5 million species and don't know how many more there are. So we are losing species before we can count them, let alone study them. By each of us exploring the repercussions of how we live our lives, how we use energy and water, how we eat and how we spend our dollars we can hopefully start reducing biodiversity loss.

Check out our resources. Send us links. Write on our Facebook wall with your thoughts, links and photos. Advertise us. It's our planet, our environment and these are our species. (Recently I saw a video that mentioned if aliens invaded and started taking or killing our species, we'd definitely fight back. Now is our chance.)

Here's a quote from E.O. Wilson's Pulitzer prizewinning book, The Diversity of Life: "[A] panda or a sequoia represents a magnitude of evolution that comes along only rarely. It takes a stroke of luck and a long period of probing, experimentation and failure. Such a creation is part of deep history and the planet does not have the means nor we the time to see it repeated."

In just under two weeks, we're going to announce, "Let the Games begin!" If you're at BU, sign-up by April 9 to qualify to win a copy of The Omnivore's Dilemma. If you're beyond-BU, sign-up anyway to help us generate some buzz.

We value your participation and are excited you want to be a part of these Ecolympics.