August-November 1998

Are We Extinguishing Our Future?

Biodiversity Loss and Efforts to Save
Endangered Species and Habitats

From our favorite lake or creek to the Amazon rain forests, frogs are in trouble. Worldwide, up to 90% of normal frog populations have vanished in the past few decades through habitat destruction, pesticides, pollution, and ozone depletion. Like canaries in a coal mine, dying frog populations are the signals of a planet in peril. A 1998 Harris Poll of leading scientists revealed:

• Seven in 10 biologists believe that the earth is in the midst of a mass extinction -- the most rapid in it's 4.5-billion-year history. In our children's lifetimes, this holocaust could kill off half of all species alive today.
  
  
• Scientists rate the loss of species as a more serious environmental threat than global warming, pollution, or depletion of the ozone layer.

To show what was at stake and what listeners could do to help, the Mainstream Media Project offered interviews with some of the nation's leading experts on threatened animals and plants, as well as scientists and others doing the most promising work to prevent species extinction. Thirty nationally recognized authorities on biodiversity participated in this campaign along with more than 60 experts on regional issues of species or habitat loss. This highly successful campaign produced 315 interviews.

Guest Speakers by Topic

The Extinction of Species and Efforts to Save Them

Christopher Bright, Research Associate, Worldwatch Institute; Editor, World Watch

Tom Butler, Editor, Wild Earth - journal of conservation biology and wildlands activism

Theo Colborn, Director, Wildlife and Contaminants Program, World Wildlife Fund; Co-Author, Our Stolen Future

Anne Ehrlich, Stanford University Biologist; Early Biodiversity Advocate

Peter Frumhoff, Director of Global Resources Program, Union of Concerned Scientists

Francesca Grifo, Director, American Museum of Natural History Center for Biodiversity and Conservation

Gary Meffe, Conservation Biologist, University of Florida

Stephanie Mills, Author, Activist, named one of Utne Readers "100 Leading Visionaries"

Stuart Pimm, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee

Peter Raven, Director, Missouri Botanical Garden; award-winning Author of 18 books

Dan Simberloff, Evolutionary Biologist, University of Tennessee

Michael Soule, President, Wildlands Project; University of California, Santa Cruz

Gary Tabor, Director, Center for Conservation Medicine, Tufts University

David Wake, World Authority on Frog Disappearances; Curator of Herpetology, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley

Saving Ancient Forests

Julia "Butterfly" Hill, Tree-Sitter protesting logging of ancient redwoods in Northern California; now aloft nearly one year, a world's record

Jerry Franklin, Professor of Ecosystem Analysis, University of Washington

Steve Gatewood, Executive Director, Wildlands Project

Harvey Locke, Vice President, Wildlands Project

Resolving Environmental Conflicts

Chris Maser, Pioneer in preserving tropical rainforests, sustainable forestry, and environmental conflict resolution

John McCosker, Research Chair of Aquatic Biology, California Academy of Sciences

Protecting Coastal and Marine Environments

Jane Lubchenco, Marine Biologist, Oregon State University

Elliott Norse, President, Marine Conservation

Thomas Eisner, Entomologist, Cornell University; Leading Advocate of "chemical prospecting"

Thomas Lovejoy, Chief Biodiversity Advisor, World Bank

Desert Ecosystems

Luther Propst, Founding Director, Sonoran Institute

Preserving River and Creek Life

Rebecca Wodder, President, American Rivers

Effects of Industrial Pollution on Human Health

J.P. Myers, Director, W. Alton Jones Foundation; Co-Author, Our Stolen Future

Sustainable Agriculture

Wes Jackson, President, The Land Institute

Designing Human Systems to Fit into Nature

David Orr, Chair, Environmental Studies Department, Oberlin College

The Role of Religion in the Preservation of Life

Peter Illyn, NW Director, Evangelical Environmental Network

+ more than five dozen local participants from all regions of the country