Dr. Peter Raven is a conservationist, biodiversity expert and environmentalist. The president emeritus of the Missouri Botanical Garden, he led the oldest operating botanical garden in the country for more than four decades. Dr. Raven, who recently spoke at the Wild Center in Tupper Lake, New York, says too many people have lost touch with how intertwined all things are with nature.
“We’re entirely dependent on other living things for our existence and so are all the other living things on Earth and by neglecting that fact we get into trouble. The population of the world has tripled during my lifetime, I was born in 1936, that plus increased desire for consumption really carries us far into the guts of these systems and tends to disrupt them.”
Dr. Peter Raven served as Home Secretary of the National Academy of Sciences for 12 years and is a recipient of the U.S. National Medal of Science.