Throughout National Wildlife Week (April 21 – 29), which intersects Earth Day, about 30 bloggers (signed up in a mere three days since the announcement) will be spending the week conducting bioblitzes across the world – the US, Panama, Canada, etc. – compiling the information gained into tallies and grand totals of species, then georeferencing the whole bit on an interactive world map, showing our results spatially.

This year�s Earth Day, marking the anniversary of the founding of the modern environmental movement in 1970, is Sunday, April 22, 2007.

In celebration of this event, ESA News and Views will feature your thoughts, reminiscences, polemics, and general musings on Earth Day

Contributed by Edward B. Barbier, Department of Economics & Finance, University of Wyoming

In a recent editorial in the New York Times (“False Hopes and Natural Disasters”, December 26, 2006), Andrew Baird has criticized Bill Clinton in his role as special envoy for UN tsunami recovery for endorsing publicly a $62 million program for preserving mangroves and coastal reefs as “natural barriers” to future tsunamis in 12 Indian Ocean countries.

Regardless of dictionary definitions, anyone who has ever restored a car or a house knows that it is not only possible, it is also a rewarding experience that allows one to regain use of something that has been damaged or fallen into disrepair. But no one expects a restored house to be the same house that it was before. The paint may be the same color, but if lead paint was used something less toxic would now be substituted. No one would propose the use of asbestos as insulation or wallpaper known to burst into flames from a mere spark. In some parts of the world, air conditioning might be installed to protect the remaining historic components of a structure from the elements; if threatened by floods, a historic house undergoing restoration might be raised up on pilings. Where a house might have been home to a family of five, it might now be used as an office or retail store.

Why on earth would an ecologist, much less one employed by the Ecological Society of America, say such a thing? Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of papers and books have been devoted to the subject, not to mention numerous meetings and at least one professional society (the Society for Ecological Restoration International, a partner in ESA’s 2002 and 2007 annual meetings.) The phrase “ecological restoration” generates 772,000 hits on Google, the phrase “ecological restoration is impossible” six. So this would appear to be a minority opinion. But perhaps some explication will produce broader agreement than the current three-quarter million to one ratio would imply.

When you are out in the cold, taking samples and measurements, do you sometimes get “jiggy with it” to keep warm? Then perhaps pole dancing is for you—dancing at the North or South Pole that is. March 1, 2007 marks the beginning of International Polar Year (IPY), an international and multidisciplinary effort involving 50,000 people from more than 60 countries in Arctic and Antarctic research.

Anyone who has ventured to Antarctica can not help but have the highest respect for early explorers. How did these men, without the benefit of modern outdoor equipment, endure the harsh conditions of cold, starvation, isolation, scurvy, injury, ice storms, avalanches, and physical deterioration? Why do explorers past and present �� have such an obsession for experiencing nature in its extreme?

I sit here in the Wild Palms Hotel sipping coffee and thinking about the great information we gathered this weekend, the ideas that were generated and the amazing insight that the invited speakers gave all of us. I think of whats ahead in my life and in the life of each of the fellows and I know that we will all become great scientists. We have also realized to a greater extent that with becoming a great scientist comes great responsibility to all life.