Audubon Society’s Ron Dodson to visit UAF

Submitted by Russell deForest
Phone: (907) 458-0027
04/08/05

Audubon International CEO Ron Dodson, an advocate for sustainable communities and long-range land use design and planning, will be in Fairbanks, April 11-15, 2005. During his visit he will meet with community leaders in Fairbanks and Fort Yukon and with campus faculty and students. He will also present the following lecture and seminar:

• Sustainability: Building Partnerships for the Planet, Wednesday, April 13, 7 p.m. in Schaible Auditorium.
• Sustainability and Community Development, Thursday, April 14, 1-2:30 p.m. in 206 Gruening.

Sustainability is a concept that balances ecological, economic and social equity issues. Dodson has worked extensively to help create partnerships between organizations and communities on environmental planning issues and sustainable development.

Dodson is the president and CEO of the Audubon Society of New York State and Audubon International. Through Audubon International he created the Audubon cooperative sanctuary system and the Audubon sustainable communities program for municipalities. He administers the national sustainable communities partnership to foster unification between non-profits, universities, governmental agencies and citizens to promote more sustainable community planning, design and management. He has won numerous awards for his conservation efforts and was recognized by Landscape Management as person of the year in 1998.

Dodson’s conservation efforts includes working on the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, which designated more than 100 million acres of Alaska land for conservation units, doubling the size of the U.S. National Park System. He was in the Oval Office when President Carter signed ANILCA into law on Dec. 2, 1980.

This event is made possible by the UAF Sustainable Campus Initiative with support from the Office of the Chancellor.

CONTACT: Craig Gerlach, UAF anthropology department at (907) 474-6752 or e-mail at ffscg@uaf.edu or Russell deForest, research assistant for the Sustainable Campus Initiative at (907) 458-0027 or e-mail rdeforest@fastmail.fm.