All Species Foundation
{{Short description|Attempt to catalog all life on Earth}}
The All Species Foundation (stylized as ALL Species Foundation) was an organization aiming to catalog all species on Earth by 2025 through their All Species Inventory initiative.{{cite web |title=A Call for the Discovery of All Life-Forms on Earth |url=http://www.all-species.org/call.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070202032924/http://www.all-species.org/call.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=2 February 2007 |website=All Species Foundation |access-date=28 July 2019}} The project was launched in 2000 by Kevin Kelly, Stewart Brand and Ryan Phelan.{{cite web |last1=Kelly |first1=Kevin |title=Biography |url=https://kk.org/biography |website=Kevin Kelly |access-date=28 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190518095911/https://kk.org/biography/ |archive-date=2019-05-18}}{{cite web |last1=Hitt |first1=Jack |title=THE YEAR IN IDEAS: A TO Z.; The All-Species Inventory |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/09/magazine/the-year-in-ideas-a-to-z-the-all-species-inventory.html |website=The New York Times |access-date=28 July 2019 |date=December 9, 2001}} Along with other similar efforts, the All Species Foundation was promoted as an important step forward in expanding, modernizing and digitizing the field of taxonomy.{{cite web |last1=Gewin |first1=Virginia |title=All living things, online |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/418362a |website=Nature |publisher=Springer Nature |access-date=28 July 2019}} The Foundation started with a large grant from the Schlinger Foundation but had difficulty finding continued funding.{{cite web |title=History |url=http://www.all-species.org/history.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070204031224/http://www.all-species.org/history.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=4 February 2007 |website=All Species Foundation |access-date=28 July 2019}} In 2007 the project ceased activity and "[handed] off [its] mission to the Encyclopedia of Life".
The All Species Foundation received some critique for its approach to defining and identifying species. An open letter expressed concern over the species problem, a fundamental issue in taxonomy of what exactly defines a species. The letter argued that failing to acknowledge and account for this fundamental issue could undermine the use of the database for conservation and biodiversity preservation.{{cite web|url=https://bio.cst.temple.edu/~hey/pdf/unpublished/Letter_to_All_Species_Foundation.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190728150707/https://bio.cst.temple.edu/~hey/pdf/unpublished/Letter_to_All_Species_Foundation.pdf|url-status=dead|archive-date=2019-07-28|title=Letter to the All Species Foundation}}