On Wednesday, August 9, 2000 at 8:30 p.m. Dr. David Suzuki, award-winning scientist, environmentalist, and broadcaster, will speak at the public plenary session of the Ecological Society of America's 85th Annual Meeting. This year's meeting will be held in Snowbird, Utah August 6-10. In an address entitled "The Ecological Millennium: Setting the Real Bottom Line" Dr. Suzuki will discuss the importance of ecology in today's rapidly changing world.
In addition to his achievements as a scientist, Dr. David Suzuki has received consistently high acclaim for his thirty years of award-winning work in broadcasting. His talent for explaining the complexities of science in a compelling and easily understood way has made his television and radio series popular among scientists and non-scientists alike. He is perhaps best known for his eight-part PBS series The Secret of Life and his five-part Discovery Channel series The Brain. Additionally, Dr. Suzuki is the host of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's popular science television series, The Nature of Things. He also initiated the CBC's long running radio series Quirks and Quacks.
Much of Dr. Suzuki's work occurs through the projects and campaigns of the David Suzuki Foundation (http://www.davidsuzuki.org). Dr. Suzuki will discuss his efforts to prevent ecological crises and find ways for humans to live in balance with nature. He primarily focuses his energies within two comprehensive project areas: Climate Change and Pacific Salmon Forests. The first campaign is designed to educate the public, government and business leaders about the urgency and practical strategies for reducing global warming caused by human activities. The second project works toward a broad, economically and ecologically sound vision of Canada's northwest coast that conserves the rare and important coastal temperate rainforest.
Dr. Suzuki is a geneticist with a B.S. degree from Amherst College and a Ph.D. degree in zoology from the University of Chicago. He has been awarded 15 honorary doctorates from universities from Canada, the United States and Australia. He has received numerous awards for his work, including a United Nations Environmental, Scientific, and Cultural Organization prize for science, a United Nations Environment Program medal and the Order of Canada. Since 1993 Dr. Suzuki, a full professor at the University of British Columbia, has been working with UBC's Sustainable Development Research Institute.
The setting for ESA's 85th Annual Meeting will be the remote and rustic Alta Ski Resort in Snowbird, Utah. This serene location is one mile from Snowbird, at the headwall of Little Cottonwood Canyon. The mountain streams and meadows dotted with wildflowers are the ideal setting for this year's theme: "Advancing and Communicating Ecology." The four-day program will include a full agenda of symposia, scientific field trips and workshops, and exhibits featuring recent scientific texts and publications.
Photos are available. For more information please contact Alison Gillespie.
The Ecological Society of America (ESA) is a scientific, non-profit, over 7000-member organization founded in 1915. Through ESA reports, journals, membership research, and expert testimony to Congress, ESA seeks to promote the responsible application of ecological data and principles to the solution of environmental problems. ESA publishes three scientific, peer-reviewed journals: Ecology, Ecological Applications and Ecological Monographs. Information about the Society and its activities are published in the Society's newsletter, NewSource, and in the quarterly Bulletin. For more information visit the ESA website at: http://esa.sdsc.edu.