Conservation Conference 2009

CNPS 2009 Conservation Conference: Strategies and Solutions

Keynote Speakers


Steve Hopper	John (Jack) Muir Laws	Jerome Ringo

Professor Steve Hopper is the 14th Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. He joined Kew in October 2006. He holds Visiting Professorships at University of Reading, University of Western Australia and at Kings Park and Botanic Garden, Perth. He was awarded a Commonwealth Centenary Medal for service to the community in 2003. He is a Fellow of the Linnean Society and a Corresponding Member of the Botanical Society of America.

Steve Hopper is a plant conservation biologist, best known for pioneering research leading to positive conservation outcomes in south-west Australia (one of the few temperate-zone global biodiversity hotspots) and for the collaborative description of 300 new plant taxa (eucalypts, orchids, Haemodoraceae). In 1990 he was Fulbright Senior Scholar at the University of Georgia and Miller Visiting Research Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, working on granite outcrop plant life, which continues as a research interest.

Professor Hopper joined Kings Park and Botanic Garden as the Director in 1992, and from 1999 to 2004 served as Chief Executive Officer of the Botanic Gardens and Parks Authority (which manages Kings Park and Botanic Garden and Bold Park), leading the delivery of improvements to programs and infrastructure to world-class standards.

Apart from extensive research in southwest Australia, Steve Hopper has explored Australian deserts since 1980, and conducted field research in South Africa and the USA. While Foundation Professor of Plant Conservation Biology at The University of Western Australia from 2004-2006, he developed new theory on the evolution and conservation of biodiversity on the world’s oldest landscapes, and led the establishment of new degrees in conservation biology.

Naturalist, educator, artist, and author John (Jack) Muir Laws delights in exploring the natural world and sharing this love with others. He has worked as an environmental educator for over 25 years in California, Wyoming, and Alaska. He has written and illustrated field guides on the natural history of California and teaches classes on natural history, conservation biology, scientific illustration, and field sketching.

Jack Laws interest in natural history and art developed as he started birding and keeping detailed illustrated journals. He began working in environmental education while in high school and college. While earning his B.S. at UC Berkeley in Conservation and Resource Studies, he worked as an interpretive aid at a regional park in Berkeley, worked summers at the Teton Science School and started leading adult education classes at the California Academy of Sciences. He then served as a naturalist at Walker Creek environmental education center, where he refined techniques for incorporating field journaling into the science curriculum. After getting his Masters in Wildlife Biology at University of Montana, he returned to California Academy of Sciences as the senior environmental educator, then manager of field studies. Most recently, he completed a degree in Scientific Illustration at the University of California at Santa Cruz and is now an Associate in the Research Division of the California Academy of Sciences.

In the summer of 2004, Laws published Sierra Birds: a Hiker's Guide. His most recent book, The Laws Guide to the Sierra Nevada, is an illustrated field guide to more than 1,700 species of plants and animals and is beautifully illustrated with 2,710 original watercolor paintings. This comprehensive and easy to use guide allows botanists to identify the insects that come to their flowers, birders to identify the trees in which the birds perch, or hikers to identify the stars overhead at night. His illustrations capture the feeling of the living plant or animal, while also including details critical for identification. He is also a regular contributor to Bay Nature magazine with his "Naturalists Notebook" column.

Laws is currently coordinating efforts to create a curriculum to tie the field guide to the State of California education standards and secure funding to donate sets of field guides to every elementary and high school in the Sierra Nevada and teaching field sketching and natural history classes throughout the state. More info at www.johnmuirlaws.com

Jerome Ringo is a dedicated champion of environmental justice and vocal advocate of clean energy. He has first hand experience with environmental challenges we are face after having worked for more than 20 years in Louisiana’s petrochemical industry. Jerome spent most of his career as an active union member working with his fellow members to secure a safe work environment and quality jobs. Louisiana’s petrochemical industry focuses on the production of gasoline, rocket fuel, and plastics – many of which contain cancer causing chemicals. As he began observing the negative impacts of the industry’s pollution on local communities, primarily poor, minority communities, Ringo began organizing community environmental justice groups.

In 1996, Ringo was elected to serve on the National Wildlife Federation board of directors and, in 2005, Jerome became the Chair of the board. In so doing, he also became the first African-American to head a major conservation organization. Jerome is now the Immediate Past Chairman for the National Wildlife Federation. Jerome Ringo was the United States’ only black delegate at the 1998 Global Warming Treaty Negotiations in Kyoto, Japan. In addition to being present during Kyoto Treaty Negotiations, Ringo represented the National Wildlife Federation at the United Nations' conference on sustainable development in 1999.

Jerome serves as president of the Apollo Alliance, whose member organizations represent more than 17 million people across the country and has been endorsed by the AFL-CIO and 22 international labor unions. The Apollo Alliance is a coalition of labor, environmental, national security, civil rights and business leaders fighting to make America independent from foreign energy in 10 years. The Apollo Alliance is a broad coalition of major national environmental organizations, more than 50 businesses, and the support of more than 100 organizations in the nation’s states and cities.