Speakers: Paula Ehrlich, DVM, PhD
Paula J. Ehrlich, DVM, PhD
President and CEO
E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation
Paula J. Ehrlich, DVM, PhD, is President & CEO of the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation, whose purpose is to inspire informed collective action to save the biosphere. Dr. Ehrlich pioneers innovation, leads strategic activities & fosters collaborations that support worldwide protection of biodiversity. She leads a diverse team of scientists, educators & communication leaders who share a moral conviction to act to protect biodiversity as one of humanity’s transcendent goals.
Dr. Ehrlich is co-Founder of the Half-Earth Project, the leading voice for E.O. Wilson’s Half-Earth call to protect half the land and sea in order to safeguard the bulk of biodiversity. The Half-Earth Project is playing a significant role in ensuring we leave no species behind through research that provides scientific leadership in service of a resilient planet, education that fosters an intergenerational commitment to stewardship of the Earth, and engagement of a global community that perceives and celebrates the inherent value of nature.
She has led the development of the Half-Earth Project Map, raising over $20M to create a global, spatially-explicit, and taxonomically comprehensive map of species for public engagement and decision-making. Recent updates inform how well conserved places are protecting species and identify priorities for future conservation.
Dr. Ehrlich is founder of Half-Earth Day, now in its 9th year, which brings together people from around the world and across disciplines to share perspectives & thought leadership on how to achieve Half-Earth and ensure the health of our planet for future generations. Half-Earth Day has been held in DC, NYC, Berkeley, London, Montreal, Cali and virtually, attracting thousands of participants from around the globe.
Dr. Ehrlich has over 30 years of strategic scientific management and research expertise, and diverse academic, non-profit, and corporate leadership experience. As CEO of the non-profit Drug Discovery Center of Innovation, she fostered strategic innovation in early drug development for unmet medical needs. At Merck she led initiatives to establish imaging biomarkers and proof-of-concept for over 12 lead compounds, which are in clinical trials.
A keen adventurer & explorer, Paula is an avid hiker, and has summited Mt Rainier. She has been an equine surgeon at universities in 3 countries, and has worked to empower women’s cooperatives in S. Sudan. Always driven by challenge and a desire to make a difference in the world, her current work embodies the hopes of the greatest naturalist of our time, E.O. Wilson.
Reimagining the Way We Care for the Web of Life
The mass extinction of the natural world ranks with pandemics and world war as among the deadliest threats that humanity has imposed on itself. In the past half-century, species that were once virtually innumerable have practically disappeared from the Earth, and the rate of extinction is accelerating.
As E.O. Wilson has said, “Biodiversity holds the world steady.” When we lose species, we lose the ecosystems – the intricate web of life – that sustains Nature and sustains us as part of Nature. The time has come to achieve a sustainable coexistence with all of life and use knowledge as a catalyst for the transformation we are seeking.
There is now an extraordinary opportunity to act at the nexus of innovation and collaboration to reimagine how we care for the web of life. This keynote will explore how the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation is fostering engagement with unparalleled global species information, cutting-edge technology, and local community insights to protect global biodiversity and ensure we leave no species behind.