Pixabay

The world is a biodiverse place. It’s estimated that only about 10 percent of life on Earth has been discovered.

The arrival of a new year always prompts us to take a look back at the one just passed; to summarize it, to put closure on it. It was about a year ago that the United Nations proclaimed 2010 to be the International Year of Biodiversity. In the eight-minute, official video that follows, an unsettling future scenario is considered: will succeeding generations only have video clips of long-dead species (polar bears and mountain gorillas, among others) to remind them of the biodiversity that once existed on Earth?

The better news in this short film is that perhaps only 10 percent of life on Earth has been discovered—there could be up to 90 million unknown species still on the planet.

And what would a look back be, of course, without a glance ahead? Let’s hope that 2011 doesn’t prove to be The Year the First Species Went Extinct Due to Climate Change.

Here’s to finding your true places and natural habitats,

Candy