More left wing propaganda debunked.
46 percent of Earth is still wilderness, researchers report
By Paul Rogers
Mercury News
Despite population growth, logging and other environmental threats, nearly half the land on Earth remains wilderness -- undeveloped and nearly unpopulated, according to a study released today. The study by 200 international scientists, the most comprehensive analysis ever done on Earth's wild places and population trends, was seen by some experts as a surprising cause for optimism. Biologists also viewed it as a warning, since only 7 percent of the wilderness is protected.
``A lot of the planet is still in pretty decent shape,'' said Russell Mittermeier, a Harvard primatologist and president of Conservation International, an environmental group in Washington, D.C., that organized the study.
``We should be happy about that, but we should do everything we can to maintain it. A lot of areas, particularly tropical forests, are under the gun.''
Using databases, computer maps and satellite photos, the study found that 46 percent of the Earth's land can be classified as wilderness -- from the forests of Russia, Canada and Alaska to the Congo, the Amazon, the Sahara and New Guinea.
That area, totaling 68 million square kilometers -- more than seven times the size of the United States -- is home to only 2.4 percent of world population, or 144 million people.
Antarctica and the Arctic tundra make up roughly a third of that wilderness, or 23 million square kilometers.
To qualify as wilderness, researchers required areas to have fewer than five people per square kilometer, or 247 acres; at least 70 percent of their original vegetation; and a size of least 10,000 square kilometers, about the equivalent of Yellowstone National Park.
The research was done over two years by scientists from such institutions as the World Bank; Cambridge and Harvard universities; Zimbabwe's Biodiversity Foundation for Africa; and the National Amazon Research Institute in Brazil. The results will be published in a 500-page book next year: ``Wilderness: Earth's Last Wild Places,'' by the University of Chicago Press.
The study was bankrolled in part by donations from Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, of Woodside, a major donor to Conservation International.
The developed world should do more to safeguard wilderness, said Thomas Lovejoy, president of the Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment in Washington, D.C.
``There is also an ethical and moral reason,'' Lovejoy said. ``We are all -- every amoeba, every person, every rhinoceros -- the end point of 4 billion years of evolution. You just don't snuff that out.''
Others noted that civilization's footprint is worldwide.
``There's not a square centimeter on Earth that's not affected by humans and what we produce, from chemicals in the atmosphere to global warming,'' said Peter Raven, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden. ``But this is interesting. It makes the point that there are lots of little-affected areas, more than most people might think.''
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