First All Species Meeting

The First All Species Meeting
September 18-19, 2000
California Academy of Sciences
San Francisco, California

(For the 6-page version of Meeting Synopsis, click here)

If we were to land on another planet and discover life, the first thing we would do is systematically survey all the life on that planet. This is something we have not done on our own home planet. To remedy this inexcusable lapse, a group of 35 scientists met at the California Academy of Sciences to outline an ambitious plan to inventory all living creatures on Earth.

Among the participants were representatives from different regions of the world (among them Costa Rica, Malaysia, Kenya, Australia) as well as representatives studying different biota (fishes, insects, birds, plants).

One sign of our ignorance in these matters is that the estimates for how many species this inventory might entail range from 2 million to 200 million. In other words, we have no idea. Although field biologists and taxonomists (many who work at the Academy) have been discovering new species every year, the pace of this discovery simply can't keep up with the speed at which we are removing species. With a sense of urgency and humiliation, the All Species group discussed how new technology as well as new wealth might be able to make a list -- for the first time -- of all our co-inhabitants on this planet. The group also dealt with the many hurdles and difficulties in such a grand project, including the issues of keeping the scientific knowledge open, keeping commercialism out, and being sensitive to the intellectual property issues involved in large databases of biological knowledge.

But one thing the group did emphasize: as fantastical as the goal of listing, naming and describing EVERY species on Earth, this was the only goal to aim for. This, after all, is the third millennium, and we know so much about the Earth, except this.