Excuse Me, Can You Tell Me Where the Life Is?

"A New Map of Life on Earth," a new project of the World Wildlife Fund, charts the natural world in unprecedented detail and may help environmentalists figure out where to best direct their efforts. The project, which took eight years and the labor of more than 1,000 people to complete, divides the Earth into 867 ecoregions based on climate, plants, animals, soil type, geological features, and other characteristics. Eric Dinerstein, chief scientist at WWF, says the map was inspired by the advice of a veteran colleague: "The first thing you're going to need, to do conservation, is to go out and get a good map."