Sunday October 17th at 3:00 pm, the Philipstown Garden Club will sponsor a panel discussion on Biodiversity in the Program Room of the Desmond-Fish Library in Garrison. Seven individuals who have dedicated their careers to the sciences, environment, law and ethics will come together to discuss this very important topic. The public is cordially invited to come and share this experience with us. Philipstown resident, Andrew C. Revkin, the New York Times conservation reporter and author of The Burning Season and Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast among others, will serve as moderator of the panel. Mr. Revkin has received a number of awards for his articles including the American Association For the Advancement of Science and an Investigative Reporters and Editors Award.
The panel will consist of six experts in the environmental/ecological field. They are: Robert J. Goldstein,LL.M.,JD, the Director of Environmental Programs and Adjunct Professor of Law at Pace Law School. Professor Goldstein is the author of the Pace Virtual Environmental Law Library and the editor of the journal, Environmentally Friendly. He also chairs the Working Group on Information Technology of the Commission on Environmental Law (CEL) of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and is a steering committee member of the Biodiversity Conservation Information System. He joins Francesca T. Grifo, Ph.D., one of the members of the team that put together the wonderful new Hall on Biodiversity at the American Museum of Natural History. She also served as one of the Editor’s of the publication Scientists on Biodiversity which was sponsored by the Garden Club of America. Dr. Grifo is presently an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University’s Center for Environmental Research and Conservation. In addition the panel will feature Strachan Donnelley, Ph.D., the Director of the Hastings Center’s Human and Nature Program where he directs a number of projects including: "Trout, Salmon and Rivers: Saving the Human and Natural Future." Dr. Donnelley was the Center’s President and earlier Director of Education and Associate for Environmental Ethics and oversaw the Education Program and The Ethics and Environment Program. He presently serves on a number of boards including the University of Chicago, Yale University’s Institute for Biospheric Studies and the American Museum of Natural History’s Center for Biodiversity and Conservation.
The next panel member, David Rothenberg, Ph.D., also is a local resident. Dr. Rothenberg is known as a writer, philosopher, ecologist and musician. He is the author of Hand’s End: Technology and the Limits of Nature, a book about how tools have changed the meaning of nature through history, and how we may direct technology so that we can be brought closer to the environment, not further away; and he is the founder and editor of Terra Nova, a literary journal that emphasizes the cultural aspects of ecology. Dr. Rothenberg is Associate Professor of Humanities at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and lectures regularly at universities worldwide. He has served as an advisor to the German World’s Fair EXPO 2000 and the United Nations on ecological sustainability. Jim Motavalli is the editor of E Magazine, the only independent national environmental bi-monthly publication. The magazine has consistently won national design and editorial awards since it was launched after Earth Day in 1990. He is the "Conservation Works" columnist for AMC Outdoors and the Environmental Defense Fund’s EDF Letter. Mr. Motavalli was formerly the editor of the Fairfield County Weekly and occasionally writes pieces for the New York Times, The Hartford Courant, Salon, The Guardian, and Sierra among others. Motavalli hosts a bi-weekly public affairs and music radio show on listener-supported WPKN-FM in Bridgeport, CT. He has taught communications and journalism at U Conn, Stamford and now teaches journalism at Fairfield University. The sixth panelist is the noted scientist, David L. Strayer, Ph.D., from the Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, NY. Dr. Strayer’s interests revolve around the distribution and roles of freshwater invertebrates. His recent research on the impact of the zebra mussel invasion on the Hudson River ecosystem, controls on distribution and abundance of pearly mussels in rivers and streams and distribution of groundwater meiofauna in Eastern North America speak eloquently to these issues. This work has led to two more general areas of interest, that is the conservation biology of freshwater invertebrates and the origins and ecological impacts of alien species. Dr. Strayer is the author of numerous publications.
The Garden Club promises this to be a substantive and enlightening afternoon.
