Hi all. I think it's an interesting idea (half earth) and it's something i've contemplated at times. While i'm not against it, i do think its impractical in a world full of needy people. And unfortunately i think Wilson is right about the rule of tens. My way of thinking about the problem of ecological destruction is that its kind of like pandora's box moxed with midas' touch. Once you start trying to control the world you can't go back to how it was before. Also, attempts to control the world are inevitably bumbling and unpredictable. And inevitably destructive, at least to some extent. Destructive of the old, certainly. Constructive of something new that is perhaps also something good.
Preservation of wildlands is important. So is creation of forest gardens and other anthropocentric habitat. We can't go back. With luck we can go forward and it won't suck so much as it has been sucking.
Edit-- after looking at this thread i'm a bit concerned by what appears to be a lot of ignorance about evolution and biodiversity as well as misunderstanding what eo wilson is saying. Human created forest gardens are very different from efforts to restore a wildland to a more natural state. Further, natural processes in and of themselves have their own logic and their own timetable. So human meddling is inevitably at best a poor substitute for the hand of mother nature-- at least in an ideal sense. Simply because we don't actually understand ecosystems with any depth. So trying to manage them is inevitably fraught with peril of messing them up by accident. I just think wilson is fretting about this a bit too much, and letting it get in the way of trying to make things better, even if imperfectly so.
