Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life by Edward O Wilson – review

A chilling warning that we’re in danger of wiping out all wildlife on Earth

In 2000, workers finished construction of a hydropower plant in Tanzania’s Udzungwa mountains. A giant reservoir was created by damming 90% of the water that had previously poured into nearby Kihansi gorge. The consequences for indigenous species were disastrous, in particular for the tiny, golden-hued Kihansi spray toad. The little amphibian once thrived, in its thousands, in a single two-hectare patch of forest watered with spray from the gorge’s falls. Those waters dried up, as did the little homeland of the toad, which became extinct in the wild within a couple of years. Thus the end product of a million years of evolution was removed from nature by a single act of thoughtless habitat intrusion.

We’re extinguishing Earth’s biodiversity as though species are no better than weeds and kitchen vermin

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