The Legacy of E O Wilson and Tom Lovejoy

Both E.O. Wilson and Tom Lovejoy were major figures in the conservation field and passed away in late 2021 -- both also appeared on this show, so we play some clips of those conversations and talk with two guests about their legacies, but also where to look for new conservation leadership. Do we need new figures like them, or is this conservation's post-icon era? What about the great diversity of new scientists coming up via programs like STEM, and whole communities like Indigenous ones who have their own scientists, plus rich traditional ecological knowledge (TEK)? We discuss this with two guests: Rebecca McCaffery, who is Society of Conservation Biology's president for North America, and Mongabay staff writer Liz Kimbrough, who interviewed E.O. Wilson just 2 months before his passing. 

Both of these women hold conservation science PhDs and share expansive views on what's next for leadership in the field.

Update 2/2022: In late January, correspondence found among the late E.O. Wilson’s papers connected him with J. Phillipe Rushton, whose research in the 1980s and 1990s has been linked with white supremacy. The E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation has now issued a statement.

Related listening from the Newscast:

• Tom Lovejoy on  episode #51: The ‘Godfather of Biodiversity’ on why it’s time to manage Earth as a system
• Wilson on episode #56: E.O. Wilson discusses Half-Earth and conservation solutions

And here's Liz Kimbrough's late 2021 print interview of E.O. Wilson & friends for Mongabay.com:

• Half-Earth, conservation, and hope: An interview with E.O. Wilson, Paula Ehrlich and Sir Tim Smit

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Episode artwork: A moray eel in the Daymaniyat Islands, Oman. Image by Warren Baverstock / Ocean Image Bank.

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