Today’s New York Times includes an opinion piece by philanthropist Hansjörg Wyss in which he pledges to donate $1 billion over the next decade to land and ocean conservation.
Wyss is motivated by both the negative–the startling ongoing loss of biodiversity–and the positive–the growing movement around the nation and the globe to protect the planet. He seeks to “accelerate land and ocean conservation efforts around the world, with the goal of protecting 30 percent of the planet’s surface by 2030.” Wyss states “this money will support locally led conservation efforts around the world, push for increased global targets for land and ocean protection, seek to raise public awareness about the importance of this effort, and fund scientific studies to identify the best strategies to reach our target.”
The commitment by Wyss, E.O. Wilson’s call for protecting half the planet, and the growing landscape scale conservation efforts around the world are all indicators that the Chesapeake Conservation Partnership and its long-term conservation goals are increasingly both trend-setting and mainstream.
