Places and Voices
One of the Half-Earth Project’s greatest successes is inspiring the push for 30×30—the movement to protect 30 percent of land and water by 2030, an intergovernmental goal established by the scientific community and codified in the Kunming-Montreal agreement at COP15. E.O. Wilson’s Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life provides an urgent call to preserve the biodiversity of our planet, laying out the scientific case for conserving half the Earth, in turn, galvanizing nonprofits, academics, communities, and nations. 30×30 is now the basis for President Biden’s America the Beautiful plan unfolding in the U.S. and in other countries committing to aggressive conservation goals.
Places and Voices of America the Beautiful is a discussion series focused on areas of great biodiversity in the U.S. and the pathways and people essential to protecting them. A special objective of the series is to bring new voices into the 30×30 dialogue, including Phillip Howard, who is championing the preservation of sacred sites for Civil Rights history that are also laced with precious natural heritage,Deja Perkins, an urban ecologist and advocate for equal access to nature, and of Joshua F. Walden from the Center for Heirs Property Preservation that helps landowners retain rights while also generating economic benefits through conservation.
Places and Voices series topics have explored ecumenical biodiversity conservation, like the Catholic Church’s Laudato Sì, Indigenous knowledge in the desert southwest, large-scale multi-state collaborations in the Chesapeake Bay, and habitat restoration in urban areas like Chicago. Places and Voices is generously supported by the Resources Legacy Fund.
