Eric Sanderson

Educator/Teacher, Environmentalist, Parent, Scientist, Student, Writer/Editor

Eric W. Sanderson is a Senior Conservation Ecologist in the Living Landscapes Program at the Wildlife Conservation Society. Sanderson received his Ph.D. in ecology (emphasis in ecosystem and landscape ecology) from the University of California, Davis, in 1998. Dr. Sanderson and colleagues created the Human Footprint map, the first look at human influence globally at less than 1 square mile resolution. He is also an expert on species conservation planning and has contributed to efforts to save lions, tigers, Asian bears, jaguars, tapirs, peccaries, American crocodiles, North American bison and Mongolian gazelle; and landscape planning conservation efforts in Argentina, Tanzania, Mongolia, and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and the Adirondack Park, in the USA. He has edited two scientific volumes and written numerous scientific papers. His work has been featured in the New York Times, CNN, NPR, and most recently in The New Yorker, which profiled his work on the Mannahatta Project, an effort to reconstruct the landscape of Manhattan Island in 1609, the afternoon that Henry Hudson arrived in New York; a book about that project will be published by Harry N. Abrams, Inc., in 2009.

Transforming the human footprint to so that people and the rest of the natural world can thrive in the 21st century

Cities are habitat for people. In a world which is rapidly urbanizing, we need to find ways to make cities not only great places to live, but sustainable over the long-term. Manhattan and its historical counterpart 400 years ago, Mannahatta, in complementary fashion suggest a way forward.

Conservation, Landscape Ecology, New York City

I started the Mannahatta Project ten years ago after seeing an old map in a book. The map was the British Headquarters Map, drawn by cartographers working for the British Army during the American War of Independence, and it showed the landscape of Manhattan Island in remarkable detail. One afternoon I tried georeferencing the map to the city grid today and got a pretty good fit. Over the years, I got the fit down to less than one block's width, and started a process to recreate the landscape, layer by layer, from the rocks to the trees, in the process integrating the ecology in a way that had never been tried before, leading to a new way of visualizing ecological networks called Muir webs, and with the help of my friend and colleague, Markley Boyer, providing New Yorkers views of their natal home, positioned to match any window in the city. The goal of the Mannahatta Project has never been to bring back Mannahatta, but to find in the juxtaposition a new way to see our home.

kayaking and board games