A Swiss
philanthropist's foundation will donate $1 billion to conserve the planet's
land and oceans in an effort to expand the availability of clean air and
drinking water.
Hansjörg
Wyss, a billionaire and conservationist, wrote Wednesday in a New York Times
op-ed that he will donate the money over the next 10 years through his Wyss
Foundation. Lands and waters are best conserved when they become public
national parks, wildlife refuges, or marine reserves, Wyss wrote. He aims to
help conserve 30% of the Earth in a natural state by 2030.
According to
researchers at Brown University, animal and plant species are going extinct
1,000 times faster than they did prior to human activity. A recent study in the
journal PNAS predicted that humans will cause so many mammal species to go
extinct in the next 50 years that the planet's evolutionary diversity won't
recover for up to 5 million years.
Some
scientists say at least 50% of the Earth needs to be protected in order to
avoid losing a majority of plant and animal species. As of now, however, only
15% of the planet's lands and 7% of the oceans have been protected in a natural
state.
The Wyss
campaign will support locally-led efforts to better manage parks and protected
areas. Wyss will also sponsor research at the University of Bern, Switzerland,
so that scientists can determine the most effective and feasible conservation
methods.
Wyss
previously helped protect wild species on roughly 40 million acres of land and
ocean after donating more than $450 million across Africa, South America, North
America, and Europe. Wyss is also one of several billionaires to sign the
Giving Pledge, a commitment to give away at least half of one's wealth to
charity.
"Every
one of us — citizens, philanthropists, business and government leaders — should
be troubled by the enormous gap between how little of our natural world is
currently protected and how much should be protected," Wyss wrote.
"It is a gap that we must urgently narrow, before our human footprint
consumes the earth's remaining wild places."
This article
was originally published by Business Insider.
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