WWU to host Society for Human Ecology Conference Sept. 10-13

DATE: September 02, 2008 15:28:17 PST

Contact: Huxley College of the Environment Associate Professor Gene Myers, (360) 650-4775 or gene.myers@wwu.edu.

BELLINGHAM - Western Washington University's Huxley College of the Environment will host the XVI International Conference of the Society for Human Ecology Sept. 10-13, in Bellingham.

courtesy photo
Dave Foreman, named by Audubon Magazine as one of the 100 Champions of 20^th Century Conservation, will present the keynote, "Rewilding North America," at this year's International Conference of the Society for Human Ecology at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 10, in WWU's Arntzen Hall 100. The keynote is free and open to the public.
Topics to be discussed at this international event include urban human ecology, ecology education, conservation psychology, interdisciplinary environmental program design, and more. The conference is open to the public; the cost is $80 per day, payable at the conference registration area inside the Viking Union. For a full breakdown of the conference's seminars and activities, go to the SHE website at http://www.societyforhumanecology.org.

Past SHE annual conferences have been held in such locations as Rio de Janiero, Brazil and Bar Harbor, Maine; next year's conference will be in Manchester, England. More than one-quarter of the event's attendees will come from other countries, including Australia, Great Britain, Germany, Japan, Brazil and Indonesia.

Huxley College of the Environment Associate Professor Gene Myers, conference co-chair and current president of SHE, said the conference has much to offer anyone with an interest in the way humans are affecting the world's natural systems.

"SHE conferences are not stuffy academic affairs, but always have a very collegial and creative atmosphere. The realization that academic disciplines alone do not suffice to understand the human relationship to nature drives a quest for better forms of integrative, innovative knowledge and practice at SHE conferences," he said. "SHE perfectly complements the real-world challenges of sustainability that are the focus of Huxley College and many students and faculty at Western."

From 6:30-7:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 12 in Arntzen Hall 100, the conference's keynote speaker, wilderness conservationist Dave Foreman, will present "Rewilding North America." This session is free and open to the public. Foreman is the former Director of Wilderness Affairs for The Wilderness Society, editor of the Earth First! Journal, and member of the board of trustees of the New Mexico Chapter of The Nature Conservancy. He is the author of "Confessions of an Eco-Warrior" and "The Big Outside," as well as the novel "The Lobo Outback Funeral Home." In 1998, Foreman was named by Audubon Magazine as one of the 100 Champions of 20^th Century Conservation.

Huxley College Department of Environmental Science faculty member John McLaughlin will provide a response to Foreman's presentation.

For more on the XVI International Conference of the Society for Human Ecology, contact Gene Myers at gene.myers@wwu.edu or by phone at (360) 650-4775.

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