That's what the best global conservation organisations and the American government (and other environmentally inclined governments, such as Sweden and the Netherlands) are doing: protecting the remaining wild environment. This is the equivalent of getting a patient to the emergency room - keep them alive and then figure out how to save them.

Jungles and grasslands are the logical destinations, and towns and farmland the labyrinths that people have imposed between them sometime in the past. I cherish the green enclaves accidentally left behind.

What we need is an electronic encyclopedia of life, with one page for each species. On each page is given everything known about that species.

The human juggernaut is permanently eroding Earth's ancient biosphere.

All my life I have placed great store in civility and good manners, practices I find scarce among the often hard-edged, badly socialized scientists with whom I associate. Tone of voice means a great deal to me in the course of debate. I despise the arrogance and doting self-regard so frequently found among the very bright.

Biology has finally opened up to achieve a unifying embrace of all its disciplines. We're seeing the renaissance of what could be called scientific natural history, which makes available the groundwork - the foundation work - of what is actually on the Earth.

There can be no purpose more enspiriting than to begin the age of restoration, reweaving the wondrous diversity of life that still surrounds us.