Sustainable Futures Speaker Series

October 27, 2017

As part of the Sustainable Futures Speaker Series, George Wuerthner will present "Praise the Dead: Dead Trees and Healthy Forest Ecosystems."

George Wuerthner is an ecologist who worked for many years at the Foundation for Deep Ecology. He is the author of 38 books on the environment and natural history including Wildfire: A Century of Failed Forest PolicyKeeping the Wild: Against the Domestication of the EarthProtecting the Wild: Parks and Wilderness, the Foundation for Conservation, and Energy: The Delusion of Endless Development. In researching these and other titles, George has traveled extensively throughout the West to observe major ecological processes, including wildfire, firsthand.

In his presentation, George will argue that the common definition of a "healthy forest" is skewed by an industrial forestry bias that sees anything that kills trees as a negative. However, from an ecological perspective, a very large number of species are dependent upon or enhanced by episodic mortality events such as wildfire and bark beetle outbreaks, and some researchers now suggest these events are drivers of biodiversity.

The Sustainable Futures Speaker Series is presented by the Environment & Community Graduate Program and the Schatz Energy Research Center.

The presentation will take place Thursday, November 2, at 5:30 p.m. in Founders Hall 118.

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