ISSN 1759-8036

Issue 18 • May 2013

Issue 8 Click to download print version *

December 2010

NEWS FROM THE LINNEAN SOCIETY OF LONDON

News from the Linnean Society of London – A living forum for biology

The International Year

VIRTUAL T

of Biodiversity: What

he Linnaean collections

contents

Happens Next?

T at the Linnean Society of

he International Year of Biodiversity – IYOB – conjures

up visions of great celebrations of the diversity of

LINNAEUS

life on Earth. This year has indeed been marked by

p2 Monocots

an incredibly rich set of activities, both here at the Linnean

Society, in London, in the UK and worldwide, designed to

concentrate minds and hearts on the challenge of conserv-

London not only comprise

ing habitats, species and genes in the years ahead. 2010 was

Botanical Journal

the year of targets – the target adopted by the Conference

of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in

specimens of plants, fish,

p2 Medals and Prizes shells and insects (acquired

2002 was to “achieve, by 2010, a significant reduction of the

current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and

Digitising

national levels as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to

from the widow of Swedish

the benefit of all life on earth”. It is widely accepted that the

Call for nominations

target was not met in its entirety – but targets are aspira-

tions, there were good news stories as well.

the Linnaean naturalist Carl Linnaeus in

Here at the Society we began the year with a talk about rein-

troduction of beavers to Scotland, a real success story; later on

p3 Ground Roots

in conjunction with the Joint Nature Conservation Committee we

discussed the five main drivers of biodiversity loss identified by the

1784 by James Edward Smith),

Manuscripts

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and prioritised which needed

Teaching children to care

most urgent attention. Our annual joint biodiversity policy lecture

with the Systematics Association was a passionate case for linking

biodiversity loss and other planetary crises, or we would need to but also include Linnaeus’s

for their environment

“rent a bigger planet”! The concept of evidence-based conservation

library of about 1,600 volumes

– documenting what actually works on the ground – was received

with great enthusiasm at a packed summer evening meeting.

p3 Dr Patrick Neill

I began my own year with a meeting at UNESCO in Paris, one

step in setting the next sets of targets. The TEEB report on the

document the diversity of life on earth.

and around 3,000 letters and

Memorial Medal

economics of biodiversity brought the real cost of losing the rest

of life on the planet home – we tend to take ecosystem services

When the roadshow that is the COP in Nagoya dies down and

new targets for 2020 or 2030 are set, new policies developed and

underpinned by biodiversity so much for granted that it took

a major initiative to bring their true value in monetary terms to

the fore. Conferences were held throughout the year, all over the

new partnerships established, we must not forget biodiversity, not

think that because we had a year of biodiversity we can now move

on to something new. Biodiversity underpins ecosystem services

manuscripts. This collection,

world to develop new targets for the conservation of biodiversity

p4 TheEvoliution of the

– these culminated in the COP in Nagoya, Japan, happening as I

write. In Nagoya, the meeting of Target 1 of the Global Strategy

upon which the human species, named Homo sapiens or “thinking

man” by Linnaeus, depends. IYOB was not just a celebration of the

diversity of life on earth, but a platform upon which to develop

with many annotated books

for Plant Conservation (GSPC) was announced – botanists have

Unfeathered Bird

achieved a working list of all plant species, a true global effort.

This year also saw the “completion” of the Census of Marine Life,

thoughts and actions to maintain a diverse and dynamic planet.

IYOB was only a beginning.

Dr Sandra Knapp flS

and manuscripts, is an

another incredible effort by the scientific community to assess and

A new look at illustrating invaluable, if not currently

bird anatomy accessible, source for how

early modern naturalists and

p6 Our East Basement physicians developed new

A secret gem of Victorian ways of thinking about the

engineering order of nature. They contain

a wealth of material of interest

p8 News & Events to medical, economic and

Celebrate Alfred Russel

environmental historians, and

Wallace in Bournemouth

Building Work Update

also assist taxonomists in the

Ray Heaton becomes

formidable task of identifying

VP at ZSL the species Linnaeus

Forthcoming Events

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