Planet Earth is about 4.55 billion years old. A sense for this achingly long time grew only slowly throughout the nineteenth century as geological and biological inquiry unravelled the pattern and processes of the planet’s natural environment. The 4.55 billion figure derives from the decay of radioactive forms of elements …

Our awareness of current threats to biodiversity and prospects for future survival arises in part because we know of animals and plants that have become extinct in the past. News media feed an appetite for tales of dinosaurs, mammoths, living fossils and missing links. The biodiversity of Earth is not …

The word biodiversity was coined in the mid-1980s to capture the essence of research into the variety and richness of life on Earth. It is now widely used all over the globe by every environment related scientific or protesting community. Its rapid establishment in science and popular culture is an …