Recent months have seen the publication of some alarming new scientific reports. One, from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, concerned the screaming urgency of action to limit global temperature increase to below the widely recognised danger threshold of 1.5°C.

A Water Summit hosted by The Financial Times in London this week will see leading figures from the world of finance and companies heavily dependent on water coming together to discuss innovative financial solutions to water management challenges.

During the general election campaign hardly a mention was made about policies to protect the environment. Aside from ministers being taken to court over their air pollution plan (or lack of one) and Theresa May expressing ‘disappointment’ at Donald Trump withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement, there was barely a murmur about the need to sustain and restore the environment that sustains us all.

This was not new, of course.

In protecting half the Earth a good place to start is with the 846 terrrestrial ecoregions

A research paper published last week sets out the huge task that lies ahead in reaching the goal of protecting half the Earth. The conclusion that we need to do this to save most of life on Earth comes from one of the world’s greatest scientists: the ecologist Edward Wilson (often know as E.O. Wilson).