The theme of this year’s Ecological Society of America (ESA) Annual Meeting is Life on Earth: Preserving, Utilizing and Sustaining our Ecosystems. To preserve biological diversity (which includes ecosystems, species, and genes) there must be a focus on informed, sustainable utilization at the landscape scale. Species population declines and mass extinctions have always been part of the natural process; however, observations made over the last few decades have made it clear that these dynamics are quite out of the ordinary. This conference will explore the three aspects that define biodiversity, and focus on how humans are at the center of these changes and massive alterations to natural ecosystems.