Featured Speakers
Featured Speaker: Dr.
Richard Beilfuss
Dr. Richard Beilfuss is the President and CEO of the
International Crane
Foundation (ICF). Rich began working for ICF in 1988 as an
intern, directed the ICF Africa Program from 1993 to 2005, and
served as Director of Scientific Services in Mozambique for the
Gorongosa Restoration Project from 2005 to 2009. Rich returned
to ICF in 2009 as Vice President, Programs, and was promoted to ICF
President and CEO in 2010.
Rich specializes in the emerging field
of “environmental flows”, which describe the quantity, timing, and
quality of water flows required to sustain freshwater and estuarine
ecosystems and the human livelihoods that depend on these
ecosystems. He has a Ph.D. in Land Resources (Wetland Ecology)
and is a Licensed Professional Hydrologist. Prior to rejoining
ICF, Rich was appointed as Senior Advisor to the World Wildlife Fund
and as an Affiliate of the Natural Heritage Institute, and is now
continuing in this capacity through ICF to improve water management
in the Zambezi River basin of southern Africa and elsewhere.
In
addition to his work with ICF, Rich also is an Adjunct Professor for
the University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering and for
the University of Eduardo Mondlane in Mozambique, where he enjoys
teaching courses and supervising students.
Speaking
Time and Date
Richard Beilfuss will be the Featured
Speaker on Saturday, November 5, at 12:30 PM. Admission to his
presentation, The Global Status and Conservation of Cranes and the
Landscapes on Which They Depend, is free.
Featured Speaker: Hank
Lentfer
Join us for a celebration of Hank Lentfer's acclaimed new book
Faith of Cranes: Finding Hope and Family in Alaska, a lyrical
memoir of home and community near Glacier Bay. Hank listened
to cranes passing over his home for 20 years before bothering to
figure out where they were going. On a visceral level, he did
not want to know. A former wildlife biologist and longtime
conservationist, Hank had come to accept that no number of letters
to the editor could stop the spread of clear cuts, alter the course
of climate change, or ensure that his beloved cranes would always
appear. Sharing personal stories, Hank will explore the myriad
of human responses to the diminishment of natural beauty. Come
listen to the story of how one man, blinded to present beauty by the
fear of an ugly future, regained his sight.
Read the
prologue to Faith of Cranes at
www.hanklentfer.com
"How do we summon the faith, maybe
the courage, to move toward a future in a world so grievously
threatened? Faith of Cranes is Hank Lentfer's answer.
Authentic and essential, heart-wrenching yet luminous with hope,
Lentfer writes in the tradition of America's best naturalist
philosophers like Sigurd Olsen and Terry Tempest Williams. His
story of wild Alaska is one-of-a-kind -- courageous, funny, wise,
and beautiful."
-- Kathleen Dean Moore, author of Pine Island
Paradox and Wild Comfort
"Faith of Cranes is a love song to
the beauty and worth of the lives we are able to lead in the world
just as it is, troubled though it be. Lentfer's storytelling
achieves its joys and universality not via grand summations but via
grounded self-giving, familial intimacy, funny friendships,
attentive griefs, and full-bodied immersion in the Alaskan
rainforest. The writing is honest, intensely lived, and
overflowing with heart: broken, mended, and whole."
-- David
James Duncan, author of The Brothers K and The River Why
Speaking Date and Time
Hank Lentfer will be the
Featured Speaker on Sunday, November 6, at 12:30 PM. Admission
to his presentation
Faith of Cranes: Finding Hope and Family in Alaska is free.
.