The staggeringly beautiful world that humanity has inherited took the biosphere 3.8 billion years to create. While it’s often said that the human brain is the most complex system ever evolved, it’s not as elaborate as any natural ecosystem. More organization and complexity exists in just a cup of soil than on the surfaces of every other planet combined. Diversity is the calling card of evolution, and we have yet to catalog ninety percent of living organisms on earth -- there are innumerable natural discoveries still to be made.
“It seems to me that the natural world is the greatest source of excitement; the greatest source of visual beauty; the greatest source of intellectual interest. It is the greatest source of so much that makes life worth living.”
Sir David Attenborough, Broadcaster, Naturalist
Humans have ultimately become the stewards of every living thing, and our future is reliant on Earth’s intricately balanced systems that provide us with everything we need to survive and thrive. We could not live without ecosystem services such as oxygen creation, the recycling of water and nutrients, and photosynthesis, which creates all of our food.
A proverb says that we do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. Yet we are finding that we have already borrowed too much. Assuming that commerce and growth carry on as usual, we will see the demise of most of the ocean’s big fish, tropical forests will be replaced by commercial plantations, oceans will be increasingly acidified and polluted with plastic, and our current rate of extinction will continue to accelerate as part of what is now being called a sixth mass extinction. We are reaching tipping points that cause permanent shifts in the state of global ecosystems.
These facts are daunting, but it’s not too late. Global biodiversity and conservation are the focus of many successful efforts. Hundreds of species, like the saiga antelope of Central Asia and the giant panda, have been saved from extinction. Millions of acres of valuable forests have been set aside from development; fisheries have been restocked; and millions of people have shifted their livelihoods from resource destruction to resource regeneration. In short, our planet is resilient. Evidence-based management can bring it back into a healthy balance between humans and nature.
Our Focus
Two major ecosystems are responsible for regulating our climate, creating most of the oxygen we breathe and housing the greatest diversity of wildlife on our planet: oceans and forests. While the beauty these landscapes provide may be worthy of protection in their own right, the simple truth is that without healthy oceans and forests, life on our planet as we know it today is not possible. As such, we will focus our conservation efforts on oceans, tropical forests and the wildlife that inhabits these ecosystems.
Oceans. Oceans are Earth’s life support system. While they are in rapid decline, oceans are resilient, and we can support their recovery. With the establishment of marine protected areas, advances in technology to better manage and track fisheries, models that create sustainable livelihoods for fishers, and shifts in consumption, oceans will thrive.
Forests. Tropical forests are home to a majority of all species on our planet. They are critical for mitigating climate change and helping all life flourish. Preserving and regenerating these forests is within our reach through sustainable forestry, protection of strategic tracts of land, new technologies to monitor and manage forests, and shifts in company and consumer practices.
Our Approach
With the scope of our ambitions and the scale of the challenges, the task of conservation seems colossal. Fortunately, Battery Powered joins a robust community engaged in this space, many of whom are based in California and are not only leading on local conservation issues but in many cases on global issues as well. Our support can bolster conservation efforts by identifying specific, strategic, time-bound initiatives to conserve oceans, tropical forests or the wildlife that inhabits them.
As such, we are interested in efforts that bring together the right stakeholders to capitalize on a moment in time when there is the greatest opportunity and the highest likelihood of achieving a conservation “win” or enabling a tipping point in projects aiming to conserve oceans, tropical forests or the wildlife within them. This often will involve a triggering event, such as new leadership, a unique public policy window, consumer action or scientific observation combined with political will and effective partnerships.