The Sixth Extinction: Biodiversity and Its Survival

Richard E. Leakey, Roger Lewin

Phoenix, 1996 - Biodiversity - 271 pages

There have been five great extinctions in the long history of life on earth, the most recent 65 million years ago, when all dinosaur species perished in an astonishingly brief period of time. Each of these great extinctions was unimaginably catastrophic - at least 65 percent of all species living vanished in a geological instant; in the Permian extinction, nearly 95 percent of all species were obliterated. The agency for these extinctions, the why, is hotly debated - sudden climate change, asteroids, evolutionary inadequacy - but the patterns are remarkably consistent. Now, as Leakey and Lewin show with inarguable logic based on irrefutable scientific evidence, the sixth great extinction is underway. And this time the cause is beyond dispute: By the lowest estimate, thirty thousand species are wiped out by human agency every year - a rate that matches the patterns of the other five great extinctions with frightening exactitude.

About the author

Richard Leakey, the son of leading paleoanthropologists Louis and Mary Leakey, was Director of the National Museums of Kenya for twenty years and more recently has served his country in a more political role as Director of the Wildlife Service. He made the important discovery of the ¿Turkana Boy¿, a virtually complete skeleton, and his popular books include Origins, The People of the Lake and The Making of Mankind. Sean Barrett narrated the BBC Modern History series, People¿s Century and appeared in television productions of Twelfth Night and Father Ted.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Sixth Extinction: Biodiversity and Its Survival; A Phoenix paperback; Science Masters Series
• Authors: Richard E. Leakey, Roger Lewin
• Edition: illustrated, reprint
• Publisher: Phoenix, 1996
• ISBN: 1857994736, 9781857994735
• Length: 271 pages