SAF 2006 National Convention

Keynote Speakers Talk about “Our Woods: Wild and Working”

Wangari Maathai – Keynote Speaker – Founder, Kenyan Green Belt Movement, Winner 2004 Nobel Peace Prize

Wangari Maathai, born in 1940 in Kenya, was the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate degree. Professor Maathai pioneered the concept of mobilizing communities to protect their environment through tree planting in 1976, while serving as an active member of the National Council of Women of Kenya. A year later she developed this idea into a grassroots organization, The Green Belt Movement.

Maathai started with the simple recognition that trees provide services that people and communities need. She began urging Kenya’s farmers to plant “greenbelts” of trees to stop soil erosion, provide fruit and shade, and create a source for firewood and even income producing wood products. In addition to providing seedlings, Matthai’s program eventually added an incentive system to reward seedling survival. The movement exploded, protecting Kenya’s environment and providing a source of income for thousands of people, and gaining adoption in many countries around the globe, including the United States and Haiti. Watching the changes in people’s lives as they cared for trees led to an understanding of the connection of trees and forests with democratic reform, and it was the effectiveness of this combination that won Matthai the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. She is the first African woman to receive this prestigious award.

Today, Professor Maathai is an elected Member of Parliament and serves as Deputy Minister of Environment in Kenya’s government.

Dr. Laura A. Meyerson – Keynote Speaker – Integration of Ecological Knowledge into Restoration Efforts

Dr. Laura A. Meyerson is currently an Assistant Professor of Habitat Restoration Ecology at the University of Rhode Island’s Department of Natural Resources Science. She was the adjunct professor at Brown University in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from 2000 to 2003. Dr. Meyerson earned her doctorate from Yale University.

Dr. Meyerson’s research interests are in restoration ecology, invasion biology, and environmental policy. She is currently focused on developing methods and tools that integrate ecological knowledge into restoration efforts to increase their success and the predictability of their outcomes.

As an AAAS Environmental Fellow working with the EPA and the Smithsonian Institute, Dr. Meyerson worked with the Global Invasive Species Programme and the Convention on Biological Diversity on the impacts of invasive species on island and freshwater ecosystems. She led the development of national level indicators of non-native species as a staff scientist at the Heinz Center in Washington, DC in 2004. Dr. Meyerson’s policy research is both national and international in scope and works to foster coordination and standardization of approaches and to bring the invasive species issue to the center of policy.

Daniel B. Botkin – Studying Life from a Planetary Perspective; The Character of Nature

Daniel B. Botkin is a distinguished scientist, to the point that one university in California has put him in its Environmental Hall of Fame, and The New York Times has called him “one of the world’s leading environmental researchers,” who has “done much to popularize the concept of using yet maintaining the world's natural resources.”

Botkin is a scientist who studies life from a planetary perspective, a biologist who has helped solve major environmental issues, and a writer about nature. A frequent public speaker, Botkin brings an unusual perspective to his subject. Well-known for his scientific contributions in ecology and environment, he has also worked as a professional journalist and has degrees in physics, biology, and literature. His books and lectures show how our cultural legacy often dominates what we believe to be scientific solutions.

Currently Daniel B. Botkin is a Research Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology as well as a Professor of Biology at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia.

To learn more about Daniel B. Botkin, visit his website at www.danielbbotkin.com/

Jim Grace – Sustaining Pennsylvania’s Wild and Working Forests

Dr. Grace is the State Forester of Pennsylvania. Under his leadership, as timber production from state forest lands increased, the 2.1 million acres of state forest in Pennsylvania pioneered certification for public lands in the United States, receiving FSC certification in 1997.

Dr. Grace launched an effective Ecosystem Management Advisory Committee for the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, at whose meetings stakeholders from environmental organizations through government agencies and forest industry discuss and hammer out solutions to the challenges of making sustainable management real. The Bureau is currently working to revise the role of service foresters to address the complex challenge of reaching a half million private forest landowners with a myriad of visions and motivations for forest ownership.

David Kittredge, CF – Keynote Speaker – A Successful Vision: Protected Wildland and Woodland Ecosystems in Massachusetts

David Kittredge, CF, is a Professor and Extension Forester in the Department of Natural Resources Conservation at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and Forest Policy Analyst at the Harvard Forest.

David will give us a Wildlands and Woodlands vision for forests. Developed for Massachusetts at the Harvard Forest, the vision proposes significant wild reserves on existing public lands, and proactive protection of private woodland from future development and its management to meet resource needs. Reaching private woodland owners with information about the protection and management of their land is an integral part of this vision; especially since 75% of all forests in Massachusetts are owned by thousands of private families and individuals.

Kittredge is an SAF Certified Forester as well as a Massachusetts Licensed Forester. He believes a successful wildlands and woodlands vision will protect the continued provision of ecosystem services to all Massachusetts citizens.