Species at the Brink

He tracks species one-by-one — panther by panther, antbird by antbird — in the Everglades and Brazilian rain forest. And he tracks the big picture — where, he warns, a quarter, maybe half, of the world’s species could be gone in a century. Maybe half!

But instead of just sounding alarm bells, he’s made a career of figuring out how to bring species back from the brink of extinction. It's not easy. But from deep rain forest to the halls of power, he's hard at it.

This hour, On Point: On the front lines of the global battle against species extinction, with ecologist Stuart Pimm.

You can join the conversation. Can you see it happening? Will we change before we strip the planet? Are you working on it?Guest:

Joining us from Durham, North Carolina, is Stuart Pimm. He's a professor of conservation ecology at Duke University and is one of the world's leading experts in the process of extinction. He and his students are active in the United States and on six continents and Madagascar, tracking species in their last days and finding ways to saves them. He is the founder of a project called Saving Species. He is the winner of many awards and distinctions, notably the the Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences, known as the “Nobel Prize” of the ecology world.

More links:

The Saving Species website explains the organization's mission and offers details of projects it has supported, including the Golden Lion Tamarin in Brazil and the Greater Bamboo Lemur project in Madagascar.

Saving Species produces public service announcements, like this one, on YouTube: