Rescuing the Planet: Protecting Half the Land to Heal the Earth

by Tony Hiss, E.O. Wilson (Introduction)

An urgent, resounding call to protect 50 percent of the earth's land by 2050 — thereby saving millions of its species — and a candid assessment of the health of our planet and our role in conserving it, from the award-winning author of The Experience of Place and veteran New Yorker staff writer.

"An upbeat and engaging account of the remarkable progress being made to preserve vast wild spaces for animals to roam." — The Wall Street Journal

Beginning in the vast North American Boreal Forest that stretches through Canada, and roving across the continent, from the Northern Sierra to Alabama's Paint Rock Forest, from the Appalachian Trail to a ranch in Mexico, Tony Hiss sets out on a journey to take stock of the "superorganism" that is the its land, its elements, its plants and animals, its greatest threats--and what we can do to keep it, and ourselves, alive.

Hiss not only invites us to understand the scope and gravity of the problems we face, but also makes the case for why protecting half the land is the way to fix those problems. He highlights the important work of the many groups already involved in this fight, such as the Indigenous Leadership Initiative, the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, and the global animal tracking project ICARUS. And he introduces us to the engineers, geologists, biologists, botanists, oceanographers, ecologists, and other "Half Earthers" like Hiss himself who are allied in their dedication to the unifying, essential cause of saving our own planet from ourselves.

Tender, impassioned, curious, and above all else inspiring, Rescuing the Planet is a work that promises to make all of us better citizens of the earth.

Genres: Nonfiction, Environment, Science, Nature, Audiobook, Social Science, Sustainability

320 pages, Hardcover

First published March 30, 2021

Reviews

[Keith Akers · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't finish this, I read about 1/3, looked at the index, the pictures, and the map. I don't think I have time to finish it. Here's why. If anyone is aware of how the last 2/3 of the book answers some of these questions, please enlighten me in the comments section.

First of all, I agree with the basic premise of the book. Yes: one-half for wilderness. I'm so glad that people are taking E. O. Wilson's thesis seriously and trying to come to terms with it. Another plus: it actually has an index. He's not obviously crazy, can write clear and precise sentences, and has looked at some of the areas he wants to conserve. So just for that, you get four stars!

However, critical questions remain unanswered. The main one is the same problem as with Wilson's Half-Earth book. He neither defines what he means by "half of the earth," nor does he describe what parts of the earth he will dedicate to wilderness, nor does he give criteria for determining where wilderness should exist. The second problem is that several solutions which, to my unsubtle brain, should be OBVIOUS, are not even mentioned. And here they are: reducing human population and reducing livestock populations.

Humans and their livestock have overrun the planet! The biomass of humans and livestock is about 95% of all mammalian land biomass! And most of that is livestock, not humans.

Here's my working definition of "half-earth": it means that the half of the earth dedicated to wilderness should support approximately the same mammalian biomass as the other half (the human half) supports of human biomass. I'm sure we can work in reptiles, plants, fungi, somewhere as well, but let's start with mammals, because we're mammals. I would NOT start by defining it in terms of land areas, which is evidently what the author has in mind (though I don't see him saying that in so many words).

So we could decrease the current ratio (carbon biomass is about 35:1 in favor of humans) back to something like 11:1, without really raising much of a sweat on our part, just by getting rid of the livestock. And probably that 11:1 ratio would come back as wild megafauna started to repopulate the grazing areas, as proposed in the "Buffalo Commons" idea for the Great Plains (which the author evidently doesn't mention). Ultimately, we need to reduce human population as well (another item the author doesn't mention), but we've probably got a century or two before that becomes a crisis.

Dedicating all the remotest areas of the planet (Greenland, the Sahara) to "wilderness" automatically puts "wilderness" at a disadvantage. I mean, do YOU want to live in the Sahara Desert? How about Greenland? I don't object to turning Greenland over to wilderness, I'm just saying, this isn't enough. We've seized all the most biologically productive areas of the planet for human use, leaving the leftovers for the wild animals, unlike 100,000 years ago, when wild animals were everywhere. This is evidently what Hiss wants to do; he starts out by talking about the Boreal forest in northern Canada, where we mostly wouldn't want to go in the first place. Well, maybe if we found oil; but we shouldn't be burning oil in the first place. This shouldn't be too difficult, once you realize that livestock is optional.

I've already mentioned one problem: he doesn't even comment on the "Buffalo Commons," the one practical idea for rewilding that has been made by Deborah and Frank Popper many decades ago. He doesn't mention livestock or grazing land, and he doesn't mention human population. Finally, he only mentions North America, and as far as I can see doesn't get up to 50% even in North America, though I think he's probably close if he's isolated the northern Boreal forest. So other than the fact that we still haven't answered some key questions, it's a great book.

[Max · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually like the concept of conservation according to Half-earth described in the book, but I doubt it will ever happen. This book is a collection of inspiring stories, focusing on the Americas. I found it entertaining and well written.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC to read. Opinions are my honest thoughts.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Half America" would have been an apt title for this book, granted that the Half Earth movement, or idea as it were, is meant to be taken more as an inspiration for environmental conservation than anything practical to be fully implemented. For the uninitiated, the idea of protecting half the area on the planet for wildlife and wild lands to flourish would theoretically conserve about 90% of remaining species of plants and animals. Tall order indeed, from the world's current 15% figure and with humans already appropriating three quarters or more of the planet for our needs.

Esteemed biologist E.O. Wilson outlined the idea in his book Half-Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life, which I panned for being short of any practical ideas for implementation. Here the author did spend time detailing the nitty gritty but confined to North America, probably the most realistic place to achieve this. Though this was expected from a movement spearheaded by Americans, it was disappointing nonetheless to not read more about how biodiversity hotspots in the rest of the world can be expanded and more well protected. Instead, the two poles were mentioned in passing as easy wins for a start in terms of setting aside vast expanses of wild places. Of course, places with the most to lose are mostly situated in the tropics, which also face the greatest developmental pressure. Unfortunately, this book was silent on the fate of these areas, inspiring though it was for outlining a grand vision.

[Rick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Important work. I hope it gets through to the people who can make this a reality.

[soylatte · Rating 4 out of 5]

rating: 3.75.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was ok. It's very much the style of book where it lays out a grand but extremely high-level vision. Hard to argue with any of its points, but also difficult to know where to participate or how it relates to you as an ordinary person if it's not already the field you work in.

I recommend most as a book you pick up and re-read a chapter of when you're feeling glum about the state of the environment. It's kind of a portfolio of hope: an aggregation of inspirational projects that makes you feel someone IS paying attention to all this stuff and trying to do something awesome about it; there's still a viable path forward.

"Rescuing the Planet" is a bit of a misnomer. It would better be titled, "Rescuing the United States and Canada, with a few brief detours to Mexico." This is not an international perspective (which is fine, but the title caused me to expect far more global stories).

In short: read to re-inspire yourself; share with friends who have never previously heard of things like re-wilding or ecological restoration; can skip if you're already up to date on recent conservation happenings.

[Gwen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. Not what I expected. Perhaps it is because I am so immersed in the topic of conservation and regaining lost biodiversity that this really offered nothing new. The history of conservation was interesting, and it was heartening to hear about protected lands that currently exist, but if we count on expanding only what's been done, it seems to me that 50% of the earth protected by 2050 is a pipe dream.

[Arthur Brunborg · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think the first chapter about the Boreal forest in Canada, which I had never heard of before, was well written and provided interesting insight. The rest of the book felt dragged out and unnecessary to a large extent. I also feel like it is very strange for a book of this length to not even mention the environmental impact of factory farming which is almost 1/4th of all GHG emissions globally.

[Susan Tunis · Rating 5 out of 5]

No one has ever accused me of being "outdoorsy". But if you can read a book like Rescuing the Planet and not fully appreciate the beauty and fragility of our home--and NOT want to protect it--well, there's something wrong with you. Tony Hiss's book deals equally with the human world and the natural world. He writes about nature evocatively, but he keeps things realistic when discussing what humans are likely to be willing and able to do to change the destructive course we're on.

Along the way, there are fascinating discussions of, for instance, the evolution of technology in the tracking of animal populations. I didn't know anything about the creation of the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail, and other major wild areas on this continent, and the major role that citizen volunteers had in making them a reality. There are also tales of people in positions of wealth, power, or authority working altruistically for the betterment of all. There's always plenty of depressing stuff in books like this to make anyone want to do better for the environment, but this is one of the few books that also made me feel inspired and uplifted.

[Rebecca Watts · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an engrossing read that left me feeling hopeful about the possibilities for our planet. The main title seemed to echo so many other environmental/conservation books with its brief three words that seemed to be Kumbiyah-ish: Rescuing the Planet. But the subtitle: Protecting Half the Land to Heal the Earth, compelled me to pick the book up and give it a chance. Half, huh? How? Turns out, there is a way. And a lot of people and organizations are working towards this end. Uh oh, my reading list just got longer! Thank you, Tony Hiss, for introducing me to new concepts and to so many good people on the front lines of healing the earth!

[Kara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bit of a misleading title. Heavily about United States National park system. Interesting, but not the book I thought I was getting into

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was pleased to pick up this new hardcover at Powell's City Books in Portland, Oregon for only $13.95. I was visiting my brother and attending the PNW Pen Show. It seemed fitting to get a book on the environment while in Portland.

The book contains many stories running down a theme of the 50 by 50 project, protecting half the wild earth my 2050. It's an ambitious goal, but maybe this goal isn't even going to accomplish enough for the planet. But, it's a goal that is possible, that we can achieve. If we protect 50% of our wildlands, desserts, prairies, forests, and oceans, it might save enough of the ecosystems to prevent collapse of life as we know it. It will also preserve ample land for endless generations of people to enjoy nature, something really important to humans as we live more and more in concrete wastelands. By 2050, 2/3 of the world population will live in cities, and these people will need to "touch grass" for their own pyche, breathe clean air, have a source for clean fresh water, and eat food provided by pollinators and countless organisms that support the food web.

I still hold out the hope that some day we will get our Green New Deal. Despite the anti-environment of current politics under the Trump administration, his desire to turn all natural resources over to corporations to turn into money, we can accomplish much with a long-term goal. Millions of people are working together toward this end.

I particularly enjoyed reading the history of the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Coast Trail, and the Continental Divide Trail, along with many other places of outstanding beauty in this book. I hope my great grand children will have an even great access to fresh water, pure air, and natural places that I have enjoyed, and be able to view all of God's creatures we have not "extincted" at that time, alive in their natural habitats.

Is there any greater crime against God and nature than to forever wipe from the planet a unique and special creature?

[Jeremiah Cunningham · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rescuing the Planet by Tony Hiss is a call to protect 50 percent of the earth's land by 2050. This action would have significant impacts on climate change, extinction of species, and people's ability to enjoy nature in its truest forms. Tony Hiss is an award winning author and a veteran New York staff writer and brings this experience to his writing.

The book begins in the vast North American Boreal Forest that stretches through Canada and then travels across the continent considering areas from the Northern Sierra to the Applacachian Trail and many places in between. Some of the information and places covered in the novel were familiar to me but others, such as Alabama's Paint Rock Forest, were entirely new and fascinating to learn about.

The book not only invites the reader to understand the scope and gravity of the problems we face, but also makes the case for why protecting half the land is the way to fix those problems. There is certainly a call to action within this book, but as an avid climate change and environmental issues reader this book like so many presents solutions which in reality should be combined with other approaches to make the most impact.

Even though I gave this book only three stars I did appreciate the learning it provided about different regions of North America and the 50 by 2050 movement. My issue with the book was the density and style of writing. Very few pages were dedicated to any one region or topic, but a lot of information was packed into those pages. It felt as though Hiss expected the reader to already be familiar with the people, places, and issues he was describing. When this was not the case the book became very difficult to read.

[Shelley Stenhouse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tony Hiss has written a gem of a book— a series of gems—an emerald necklace of green and greening landscapes connected by corridors, a bucolic grid discovered, designed, and maintained by brilliant obsessed preservers of the planet. It is a hopeful book, full of visions realized and realizable. In it we meet and spend time with characters of all stripes—even a woman who has developed a striped growing system on her ranches where nothing could grow before. What these people have in common is foresight, energy, uncanny knowledge and instincts. Hiss introduces us to unlikely places, insects, ecosystems, animals, and plants. We follow the first tracked wolf, Pluie; we meet the man who discovered the biosphere; the New Englander who envisioned the Appalachian Trail; we meet the Floridian multimillionaire commodities trader who ducked into a black bear seminar to escape traffic, bought up land and began saving Florida’s black bear population. The book reads like a treasure hunt, full of hand-drawn maps, pictures of eccentric naturalists and the nature and animals they revere. Rescuing the Planet is an adventure into the unseen, underappreciated eco-miracles all around us, even in city sidewalk cracks. It’s the most inspiring non-fiction book I’ve read—and its time is now.

[Michele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tony Hiss is a really good writer and takes what could be a very dry and depressing subject, and yet left me with hope. Because of my adoration of EO Wilson and my career conserving land, understanding more about the goal to conserve half the earth seemed worth my time. Hiss “sought out people who consider 50 by ’50 practical; I wanted to see the problems they face and the prime spaces where it could work, the pieces of the continent ready to be folded in”(5%). And that’s what this book is about.

Why protect at least half of the earth?
— “According to a calculation by E. O. Wilson, America’s foremost biologist, protecting 15 percent of the land guarantees the survival of only a quarter of the species with which we now share the earth. But push that figure up to 50 percent of land and sea, and up to nine-tenths of species will survive”(3%).
— And it’s very feasible in North America. “Here in North America there’s still room to spare, and 50 by ’50 can move ahead without crowding or displacing or confining anybody because human activities (cities, suburbs, farms, mines, and all the rest) so far account for less than 40 percent of the continent”(3%)
— Even our massive national parks are not enough. “Many species of mammals are disappearing from North America’s national parks solely because the parks—even those covering hundreds of thousands of acres—are too small to support them.” The data came from William D. Newmark, an ecologist who surveyed fourteen national parks in the United States and Canada…“As roads, housing development and deforestation take hold around park boundaries, they isolate animal populations in regions that seemed like spacious havens when the parks were established 70 to 90 years ago”(36%). This is rooted in island biogeography, which is talked about extensively in this book.

The reader is brought to some amazing landscapes where amazing work is being done.
—“The North American Boreal Forest, mostly in Canada, partly in Alaska, is the largest and most intact wildness left in the world”(4%). “…Siberia, the Amazon, the Boreal—the Big Three, as they are sometimes known—are all about the same size. But in Siberia roughly 50 percent has been lost, and so has more than 20 percent of the Amazon, where the rate of deforestation is spiking. The Boreal is nearly 85 percent intact”(4%).
— “the Muskwa-Kechika, sometimes referred to as North America’s Serengeti and the continent’s biggest well-kept secret. It’s a British Columbia wilderness seven times the size of Yellowstone”(42%).
— The one remaining Waverly Oak remaining in Boston, accessible by the three-quarter-mile-long Waverley Trail. It’s at least 600 years old.
— Banff National Park, which somehow “still has all the species it did when European settlers arrived in the nineteenth century”(71%).
— Paint Rock, Alabama. “So many kinds of trees thought to have been lost to the world manage to survive here”(74%). It apparently has the biodiversity of the Smoky’s in a much more compact area.

Indigenous Protected Areas are a great tool!!
—“Indigenous people constitute only 5 percent of the planet’s population but they dwell on a quarter of the land. Now that they’re finding a voice and being listened to, there’s a chance to get the balance right, a chance for the world to be helped on its journey”(19%).
— “I loved the sentiment of Aboriginal Australians about the land. ““Working on country,” as opposed to “in the countryside,” is more than a local quirk or semantic distinction; the phrase has special meaning for Aboriginal Australians, a way of indicating that the land is alive and lived with, not in. “People say that country knows, hears, smells, takes notice, takes care, is sorry or happy,” Deborah Bird Rose, an ethnographer who’s spent years working with Aboriginal people, says in her book Nourishing Terrains. “Country is home, and peace; nourishment for body, mind and spirit; heart’s ease.””(17%).
— “Indigenous people live on a vast majority of the intact land the world needs to protect. If more countries, perhaps as many as a dozen, acknowledge the rights of Indigenous citizens and work in partnership with them to set up Indigenous Protected Areas (IPAs), these areas could rival in scale those currently in Canada and Australia, and lead on to multinational constellations of IPAs. Steve Kallick, working through the Resources Legacy Fund, told me, “This could take hold as one of the central environmental rights and human rights campaigns of the century, profoundly altering how we treat each other and all the other species we live with.””(96%)

While in Florida recently, I saw a gopher tortoise, and this book taught me a lot about them. Apparently they are ecosystem engineers, like beavers, transforming their environment. “At least 360 animal species take shelter in the burrows up to fifty-two feet long and twenty-three feet deep excavated by shy and dusty gopher tortoises”(80%). But they are declining because people cover their holes and trey can’t dig up (only down).

I even learned a new word - but that’s not to say his writing is inaccessible. It was very layperson friendly. Vagility, “meaning the ability of wide-ranging animals like wolves and caribou to move freely and without restriction across a landscape that isn’t now and never was too small for them”(12%). For one male grizzly in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem to have vagility, he needs to be able to roam around on 900,000 acres (according to the gps data biologists have collected).

In Kim Stanley Robin son’s book on the High Sierra’s, he talks about this book
“E. O. Wilson named this project Half-Earth, and in the book of that title he advocates for leaving half the Earth’s land and ocean empty of humans, and thus free for the wild creatures, as part of humans living up to our moral responsibilities to our cousins on this planet, and also passing along a viable home to our descendants, who otherwise might be given a world wrecked by our ecocide. Tony Hiss has just published a book called Rescuing the Planet that recovers the pre-Wilsonian history of this idea of leaving big fractions of the land free of human alterations, and he marshals the scientific justification for this policy, and describes its many manifestations in the world today.”

[BookBrowse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hiss closes with three inspirational chapters. The first shows a series of short portraits of people doing the type of work explained in the book. The second includes a helpful list of organizations and initiatives readers can turn to if they want to help fund this work or get involved in other ways. And finally, Hiss closes by asking many of the people whose work he's profiled about their "spark bird"—the wildlife experience that got them excited about devoting their lives to the natural world. These moving words will almost certainly prompt readers to remember their own foundational moments in nature—and spark enthusiasm about saving wild places for future generations of animals, plants and humans, too.
-Norah Piehl

Read the full review at: https://www.bookbrowse.com/mag/review...

[Morgan Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is between a 3-3.5 stars. I liked this book and some of the ideas in it. I don’t know if everything is feasible but setting aside and restoring more land can only help. My main issues with this book is it pretty much focused on North America. If we’re trying to protect half the earth I do want more examples and maps from more than just North America. My other main issue is that there were no sources at the end. The author spoke about a lot of different people throughout and included their book or what article they are known for but when I’m looking for further resources it’s just a lot more convenient to see a list at the end of further things I can explore

[Rachel Miller Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am behind this idea and was encouraged to read about some the parks and corridors and properties where ecological conservation is happening already (disheartened by the throw-away reference to Mormons buying thousands of acres of long needle pine forest in the south to turn into pasture?). There were lots of stories of people in this exploration of the conservation movement- this book felt like listening to your grandpa tell stories, if Tony Hiss was your grandpa. The exploration has a strong white bias.

[Brown Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A work of doomed optimism. I don't think even the US is likely to set aside half the country for wilderness. Most of the rest of the world probably can't afford to do so. Governments will always prefer development to the dubious benefit of The Wild for human happiness. I guess I'm not feeling hopeful at the moment.

Worth a read if you have an interest in public environmental policy or the history of same.

[Logan Spader · Rating 4 out of 5]

"There is no planet B" Page. 9

Towards the end I had a hard time finishing as it got very repetitive, but a lot of the book was quite fascinating and, uniquely, very uplifting. Not many science books these days give me hope about our future, but Tony did a great job of making me feel like all hope is not lost. Thanks Tony.

Notable pages: P5-6 quote, P10 battles, P59 book, P79 "The Sixth Extinction"

[Joe Broberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book contains an inspiring collection of stories, and interesting history. However it doesn’t ever really define what protecting land means, or what pathways there could be to get to a 30 by 30 or 50 by 50 scenario. It does make a compelling case for why we should make those scenarios happen though.

[Kirk Astroth · Rating 3 out of 5]

A disjointed book that jumps around a lot. I found it hard to get through. While the idea is great—saving half the earth for nature and wildness—it often gets lost in the writer’s meanders into a myriad of tangential topics that seem to draw him down into a number of rabbit holes.

[Larissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really dry, but very important.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written; captivating

[Nancy K · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting book exploring the concept of protecting half the land to save the planet. Why should we do it? What is being done? What is encouraging and discouraging?

[Dale Lutz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Proposes wildlife corridors, reserving 50% of the land/Earth for wildlife.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very informative and provides a hopeful perspective of how protecting the planet and ecosystems within it is possible.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gives me hope. The author found many examples of people doing good for our environment and the battles they are still fighting.

[Adam Fisher · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm very interested in this topic but found this book bland and boring

[Sara Best · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was fascinating. I would never have thought we could consider protecting 50% of the planet, yet this book shows that is a doable goal. It was also fun to see small towns where I have lived mentioned, Topsfield, MA, Amherst, MA, and Douglas, AZ.