Towards Gondwana Alive: Promoting Biodiversity & Stemming the Sixth Extinction

John M. Anderson (editor), Towards Gondwana Alive: Promoting Biodiversity & Stemming the Sixth Extinction. With Messages & Endorsements from President Nelson Mandela, Secretary-General Kofi Annan, The Dalai Lama, HRH The Prince of Wales, Sir David Attenborough & Others. Pretoria: National Herbarium, 2001.

Second edition, Volume 1, 2001.

Large format (30 x 21 cm) stiff card wraps with blurb flaps, 140 pages, illustrated.

Short tear on upper hinge. Very good condition.

'The project: lobbying a critical mass of opinion
'Imagine an asteroid the diameter of central Sydney slamming into the Earth. We humans are that asteroid. Humankind is rapidly bringing about the extinction of life worldwide, irreversibly destroying the natural beauty and diversity of our Earth, impotently converting our planet to a sad, sullen slum. We are forging the Sixth Global Extinction: the fifth was that caused, we believe, by a massive asteroid 65 million years ago that brought the reign of the dinosaurs to an abrupt close. We must act now to stop the Sixth Extinction. In ten years time we will have lost the opportunity. We cannot pass the buck - neither to any metaphysical authority, or to coming generations. The Gondwana Alive Society takes up this challenge with a three-fronted approach: assembling and spreading the relevant knowledge; canvassing a critical mass of concerned opinion globally; sustaining action through the coming decades by initiating an annual Gondwana Alive - later Pangaea Alive - olympiad. Since the stakes could not be higher, Gondwana Alive aims, like Icarus, yet tempered by Daedalus, for the Sun.'