on planet earth. but the challenge, and there is a problem, and i think the pandemic has brought this home really starkly to us, which is that that life is under threat. you know, we can look back through the fossil record. we know that life has been on earth for about 3.5 billion years, 3,500 million years. but over that time, there ve been five mass extinction events. that s moments when almost all the life on earth has disappeared, and all the data is telling us we re heading for a sixth. but this one is different because all the data is telling us that this sixth potential mass extinction event, the first mass extinction event since we lost the dinosaurs over 60 million years ago this one is caused by the actions of a single species, and that s us, humanity. some of it s climate change. some of it is actually land use nearly a third of the world s land serves other things. and some of it s pollution. so, that s the challenge. and that is what the museum is out to try and fix. t
we have plants in our collections here which are now extinct in the wild, some of which will never be recovered. for example, there s a cycad encephalartos woodii in the temperate house. the only known examples in the world are male. it will never reproduce sexually. other plants are known to now be extinct. there are no examples left anywhere in the world. we do our best through the work of the millennium seed bank to gather these seeds to store them. it s an insurance policy against extinction, but i think the picture you paint is very real and kew will do everything it can to end the biodiversity crisis and to minimise the further species that we re going to lose through habitat loss. if you think about us as a museum, our subject matter is planet earth and the life here on planet earth. but the challenge, and there is a problem, and i think the pandemic has brought this home really starkly to us, which is that that life is under threat. you know, we can look back through the fossil
3,500 million years. but over that time, there ve been five mass extinction events. that s moments when almost all the life on earth has disappeared, and all the data is telling us we re heading for a sixth. but this one is different because all the data is telling us that this sixth potential mass extinction event, the first mass extinction event since we lost the dinosaurs over 60 million years ago this one is caused by the actions of a single species, and that s us, humanity. some of it s climate change. some of it is actually land use nearly a third of the world s land serves other things. and some of it s pollution. so, that s the challenge. and that is what the museum is out to try and fix. this is a big part- of our colonial legacy. think about it wildlife - and conservation stemmed from the hunting background, - and during colonial days, the only people who were allowed to hunt . legally were the colonial overlords. when things changed and hunting - was banned, those same
in the temperate house. the only known examples in the world are male. it will never reproduce sexually. other plants are known to now be extinct. there are no examples left anywhere in the world. we do our best through the work of the millennium seed bank to gather these seeds to store them. it s an insurance policy against extinction, but i think the picture you paint is very real and kew will do everything it can to end the biodiversity crisis and to minimise the further species that we re going to lose through habitat loss. if you think about us as a museum, our subject matter is planet earth and the life here on planet earth. but the challenge, and there is a problem, and i think the pandemic has brought this home really starkly to us, which is that that life is under threat. you know, we can look back through the fossil record. we know that life has been on earth for about 3.5 billion years, 3,500 million years. but over that time, there ve been five mass extinction events. that
will never be recovered. for example, there s a cycad encephalartos woodii in the temperate house. the only known examples in the world are male. it will never reproduce sexually. other plants are known to now be extinct. there are no examples left anywhere in the world. we do our best through the work of the millennium seed bank to gather these seeds to store them. it s an insurance policy against extinction, but i think the picture you paint is very real and kew will do everything it can to end the biodiversity crisis and to minimise the further species that we re going to lose through habitat loss. if you think about us as a museum, our subject matter is planet earth and the life here on planet earth. but the challenge, and there is a problem, and i think the pandemic has brought this home really starkly to us, which is that that life is under threat. you know, we can look back through the fossil record. we know that life has been on earth for about 3.5 billion years, 3,500 million