Join Us for Biodiversity Days April 24–25

The E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation is pleased to announce our upcoming “Biodiversity Days” on April 24th and 25th at Duke University and the Nicholas School of the Environment in Durham, North Carolina.

Biodiversity Days are focused on cultivating awareness and promoting understanding as a key foundation for engagement, action and inspired care of our planet.

Join Edward O. Wilson and other notable scientists and conservationists at Duke University for two full days of public lectures and panel discussions addressing the most important conservation issues and restoration efforts of our time. Evening highlights include:

• “Setting Aside Half the World for the Rest of Life,” with E.O. Wilson.

• “Global Conservation” Panel Discussion, with E.O. Wilson, Jim McClintock, and Greg Carr. Moderated by Stuart Pimm.

• The James and Cathleen Stone Distinguished Lectureship in Biodiversity with Callum Roberts discussing, “What Will It Take to Avert an Extinction Wave in the Oceans?” and introductory comments by E.O. Wilson.

TICKETS AVAILABLE NOW
All events are free and open to the public, but require a ticket. Tickets for events can be obtained through the Duke University Box Office online at https://tickets.duke.edu or by phone at 919-684-4444, or in person at the Bryan Center Box Office weekdays 11 am – 6 pm. Please note, charges apply to all orders placed by phone and online.

Parking is available in the Bryan Center parking deck for all events.

Please check this page often for the latest updates.

THURSDAY, APRIL 23

Field Auditorium, Environment Hall, 9 Circuit Drive, Duke University.

• 6 pm: Chris Norment Book Reading/Signing.

  Conservation biologist Chris Norment will read from and sign copies of his new book, Relicts of a Beautiful Sea: Survival, Extinction, and Conservation in a Desert World.

  5:15 pm: Light reception
  6:00 pm: Chris Norment Lecture and Reading
  7:30 pm: Book signing
   
  Parking after 5 pm available on Circuit Drive and LaSalle Street.

FRIDAY, APRIL 24

Duke Gardens Breakfast—By Invitation Only

Day 1: Biodiversity Days Lecture Series

Love Auditorium, Levine Science Research Center B101, West Campus, Duke University.

• 1:00 pm: Peter White, Professor of Biology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  ‘The Signature of Time and Place: Celebrating the Southeast’s Remarkable Biodiversity Pattern.’

  Peter White received his PhD from Dartmouth College in plant ecology. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the Missouri Botanical Garden and a research position with the University of Tennessee and Great Smoky Mountains National Park, he joined the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. For 28 years he led the North Carolina Botanical Garden, an award winning conservation-focused institution, and joined the faculty full-time in January. He teaches conservation biology and ecology at UNC. He was one of the founding leaders of the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory in the Smokies. His research focuses on conservation topics, disturbance ecology, and patterns of alpha and beta diversity.

• 2:00 pm: Gary Machlis, Science Advisor to the Director, National Park Service, and Professor of Environmental Sustainability, Clemson University

  ‘Revisiting Leopold: Resource Stewardship in the National Parks’

  Dr. Gary Machlis is Science Advisor to the Director, National Park Service, the first scientist appointed to this position. He is responsible for advising the Director on science policy, programs, and science-informed decisions concerning resources within the National Park System. Dr. Machlis also co-leads the Department of the Interior’s Strategic Sciences Group, which does science-based assessments during major environmental disasters, such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and Hurricane Sandy. His research examines coupled human-natural systems, sustainability, and science during crisis. .

• 3:00 pm: Todd Witcher, Executive Director, Discover Life in America

  ‘The Smokies ATBI: A Model for Global Biodiversity Census.’

  Todd P. Witcher is the Executive Director of Discover Life in America (DLIA). DLIA is the non-profit coordinating the All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory (ATBI) in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Before becoming the ED at DLIA he worked as an educator for Ijams Nature Center in Knoxville Tennessee for 16 years. Todd has an undergraduate degree from the University of Tennessee in Biology (1987), a Masters in Business from Lincoln Memorial University (1991), and a Masters in Education from the University of Tennessee (1997). Todd is an eighth generation Tennessean having grown up in the small town of Red Boiling Springs, Tennessee where the Witcher family has lived since the late 1700’s. In his spare time Todd enjoys hiking, traveling, gardening and restoring old houses.

• 4:00 pm: Greg Carr, President, Gorongosa Restoration Project

  ‘A Twenty-Year Project to Restore Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique’

  As a humanitarian and prolific philanthropist, Mr. Carr has dedicated the last 15 years of his career to the betterment of the human condition and the world we live in. In 1999, he co-founded the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University. Joining family and friends, he co-founded the Museum of Idaho in 2000, a cultural and natural history museum in Idaho Falls that is the largest institution of its kind in the state. In 2008, Mr. Carr signed a 20-year agreement with the Government of Mozambique to restore and co-manage the country’s flagship national park, Gorongosa. National Geographic Television chronicled the Park’s restoration in their film Africa’s Lost Eden.

VIP Reception—By Invitation Only

Day 1: Biodiversity Days Half Earth Lecture and Panel Discussion

Reynolds Industries Theater, Bryan Center, West Campus, Duke University.

• 7:30 pm: E.O. Wilson, Pellegrino University Professor, Harvard University

  ‘Setting Aside Half the World for the Rest of Life’

  and ‘Global Conservation’ panel discussion with Edward O. Wilson, Jim McClintock, and Greg Carr. Moderated by Stuart Pimm.

  The United States inspired the world when it invented national parks. “Now,” says E.O. Wilson, “it’s time to take things to the next level.” Join Edward O. Wilson, Jim McClintock, Greg Carr and Stuart Pimm as they explore a bold new strategy for protecting biodiversity in vital places around the world. E.O. Wilson will start the evening by introducing his vision for “Half Earth”—the permanent networks of protected and interconnected wild landscapes that are necessary to ensure the survival of the 10 million other species with which we share the planet. This short lecture will be followed by a deep panel discussion of unique ideas, practical experiences, and creative solutions that can bring this goal to life. Come to be inspired. Join some of the finest boots-on-the-ground researchers and conservationists as they discuss a thoughtful, moral and science-based response to the current biodiversity extinction crisis.

  Edward Osborne Wilson is generally recognized as one of the leading scientists in the world. He is also recognized as one of the foremost naturalists in both science and literature, as well as synthesizer in works stretching from pure biology across to the social sciences and humanities. Wilson is acknowledged as the creator of two scientific disciplines (island biogeography and sociobiology), three unifying concepts for science and the humanities jointly (biophilia, biodiversity studies, and consilience), and one major technological advance in the study of global biodiversity (the Encyclopedia of Life). Among more than one hundred awards he has received worldwide are the U. S. National Medal of Science, the Crafoord Prize (equivalent of the Nobel, for ecology) of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and the International Prize of Biology of Japan; and in letters, two Pulitzer Prizes in non-fiction, the Nonino and Serono Prizes of Italy and COSMOS Prize of Japan. For his work in conservation he has received the Gold Medal of the Worldwide Fund for Nature and the Audubon Medal of the Audubon Society. He is currently Honorary Curator in Entomology and University Research Professor Emeritus at Harvard University and Chairman of the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation Board of Advisors.

SATURDAY, APRIL 25

Day 2: Biodiversity Days Films and Lecture Series

Love Auditorium, Levine Science Research Center B101, West Campus, Duke University.

• 1:00 pm: ‘The Naturalist: Conversations with E.O. Wilson’ and ‘The Guide’ Film Screenings. Introduction by Greg Carr, President, Gorongosa Restoration Project.

  The Naturalist: Conversations with E.O Wilson features one of the world’s leading evolutionary biologists, as he explores the natural and human world. Humanity is on the brink, and Wilson delivers the unsettling truth that all of humanity’s troubles are due to the fact that ‘we are a dysfunctional species; we have star wars technology with stone age thinking.’ At 85 years old and a lifetime of work behind him, Wilson still passionately believes that science, specifically biology, is the key to help us understand the meaning of life and humanity’s future. The Naturalist is directed and produced by Shelley Schulze.

  The Guide, a documentary short featuring E.O. Wilson, is a coming-of-age tale set against the restoration of a war-torn national park in Mozambique. Raised near Gorongosa National Park, young Tonga Torcida dreams of becoming a tour guide. But when he meets famed biologist E.O. Wilson, his new view of the world around him—and his future—places him at a crossroads. Should Tonga become a guide, or take on a bigger role in trying to keep the park alive? The Guide is directed by Jessica Yu and produced by Jessica Yu and Elise Pearlstein. The Guide has screened at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and the Aspen Shortsfest.

  Greg Carr will answer questions after the films.

• 2:00 pm: Stuart Pimm, Doris Duke Chair of Conservation Ecology at the Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University

  ‘Practical Solutions for Preventing Extinction’

  Professor Stuart Leonard Pimm is the Doris Duke Chair of Conservation Ecology at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. He studies present day extinctions and what can be done to prevent them. Pimm wrote the acclaimed assessment of the human impact to the planet: The World According to Pimm: a Scientist Audits the Earth in 2001. Pimm directs SavingSpecies, a 501c3 non-profit that restores degraded lands in areas of exceptional tropical biodiversity.His international honours include the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement (2010), the Dr. A.H. Heineken Prize for Environmental Sciences from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (2006), the Society for Conservation Biology’s Edward T. LaRoe III Memorial Award (2006), and the William Proctor Prize for Scientific Achievement in 2007 from Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society. Pimm received his BSc degree from Oxford University in 1971 and his PhD from New Mexico State University in 1974.

• 3:00 pm: Bill Finch, Senior Fellow, Gulf of Mexico, Ocean Foundation

  ‘The Long View of Longleaf Pine Restoration: Making the Connections That Restore Contiguity and Continuity to Rivers, Wetlands and the Longleaf Pine Ecosystem on the Northern Gulf Coast’

  Bill Finch, author of Longleaf, Far As the Eye Can See and a well known regional writer and radio and television host, is working with multiple federal and state agencies and NGOs to address conservation issues in Alabama and along the Gulf Coast. Finch was formerly Alabama conservation director for The Nature Conservancy, director of Mobile Botanical Gardens and a managing editor with the Mobile Press-Register. He was won numerous regional and national awards for his writing on conservation and environmental issues.

• 4:00 pm: Jim McClintock, Endowed University Professor of Polar and Marine Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham

  ‘From Penguins to Plankton: the Impacts of Climate Change on the Marine Ecology of the Antarctic Peninsula’

  James B. McClintock is a professor of biology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and studies various aspects of marine biology in Antarctica. He is an authority on the effects of climate change in Antarctica which is detailed in his book Lost Antarctica – Adventures in a Disappearing Land. McClintock received his Bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1978 and his Ph.D. from the University of South Florida in 1984. In 1987, after completing a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of California at Santa Cruz, he joined the faculty of the Department of Biology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and is the Endowed University Professor of Polar and Marine Biology.

  His reading will be followed by a book-signing.

Day 2: Public Reception with E.O. Wilson and James and Cathleen Stone Distinguished Lectureship in Biodiversity

Love Auditorium, Levine Science Research Center B101, West Campus, Duke University.

• 5:00 pm: Public Reception with E.O. Wilson

  Enjoy wine and cheese during this public reception with E.O. Wilson and other scientific participants. Jim McClintock will also be available to sign his book, Lost Antarctica.

• 6:00 pm: Callum Roberts, Professor of Marine Conservation, University of York

  ‘What Will It Take to Avert an Extinction Wave in the Oceans?’
  Introductory comments by E.O. Wilson

  Human impacts on the oceans have increased dramatically in the last half century. The intensity and breadth of these changes is imperilling marine life and biodiversity is dwindling at an alarming rate. In our favor in addressing this challenge is the fact that human impacts in the sea lag those on land by a hundred years or more and while many terrestrial species have gone extinct, most marine species are still with us. There is still hope of changing course and saving them. But we face stiff headwinds in this effort. How do we protect species when we don’t know where they are or even that they exist? How do we protect life in a realm that is hostile to most of the conservation methods used on land? In this talk, drawing on thirty years’ experience studying the sea and its protection, Callum Roberts will try to answer these questions.

  Callum Roberts is Professor of Marine Conservation at the University of York. His research focuses on threats to marine ecosystems and species and on finding the means to protect them. He has documented the impacts of fishing on marine life, both historic and modern, and explored the effectiveness of marine protected areas. For the last 25 years he has used his science background to make the case for stronger protection for marine life at both national and international levels.

  His field research remains firmly rooted on coral reefs. On the islands of St. Lucia and Saba in the Caribbean, he has studied the effects of marine reserves closed to all fishing. Those studies revealed both the huge scale of human impacts on the sea, and the means of protecting marine ecosystems from such effects. He is now working to gain acceptance for marine reserves more widely.

  His award winning book, The Unnatural History of the Sea, charts the effects of 1000 years of exploitation on ocean life. Callum’s most recent book, Ocean of Life: How Our Seas Are Changing, was shortlisted for the Royal Society Winton Science Book Prize. It charts the accelerating rate of damage to the oceans, revealing how we are on a path to self-destruction without an urgent change of course. His research team provided the scientific underpinning for a network of six high seas marine protected areas covering 285,000 km2 of the north Atlantic that was declared in 2010. Callum is a WWF UK Ambassador, Trustee of Seaweb, Fauna and Flora International and Blue Marine Foundation, and Advisor to Save our Seas and The Manta Trust.

SUNDAY, APRIL 26

VIP Brunch—By Invitation Only