Encyclopedia of Life

On the theory that knowledge is a good thing a Harvard professor has kicked off a collaborative effort to create a website which will catalog all forms of life on Planet Earth.

The website will be called the Encyclopedia of Life. The intention is to create an entry on every form of life on the planet. The estimate is that this may be 1,800,000 species, but this number maybe off by a factor of 10.

The idea is that the Encyclopedia of Life, by serving as a catalog, database, and learning tool about every organism that has ever lived on the planet, to increase our biodiversity literacy.

The Encyclopedia of Life is being constructed so that child and adult can experience the thrill of learning and exploring every day, providing access to the information necessary to better understand our environment and humanity’s role on this planet.

This is expected to be a ten year effort. E.O. Wilson of Harvard University articulated the idea in a widely read essay published in 2003 and has been one of the leading proponents of the Encyclopedia of Life. Here is a link to a talk E.O. Wilson gave on the topic of the Encyclopedia of Life.