From the Alaska Forum on the Environment:
January 24, 2010
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Kurt Eilo, keilo@akforum.com, (907) 230-9805 or
Vivian Melde, vmelde@ene.com, (907) 351-5413
The 14th annual Alaska Forum on the Environment begins Monday, February 6, 2012
with a morning keynote with Michael Fay, noted naturalist and National Geographic
Explorer-in-Residence, who returns for his second AFE conference. Fay now resides
in Ketchikan, Alaska. The week-long conference, held at the Dena’ina Convention
Center, includes other featured keynotes: Jason F. McLennan, CEO of the Cascadia
Green Building Council; David J. Hayes, Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of
the Interior; Dennis McLerran, the US Environmental Protection Agency’s Regional
Administrator; Nancy Lord, Alaska’s Writer Laureate for 2008-2010 and author of The
Man Who Swam with Beavers; and John Kozij, the Director General of the Northern
Strategic Policy Branch, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada.
AFE offers more than 80 break-out sessions with a range of topics that include: climate
change, human overpopulation, mining and water quality issues, conservation and
recovery for polar bears, community gardening in rural Alaska, landfill alternatives,
invasive species in Alaska, youth environmental summit, hydroelectric projects, realities
of kinetic hydropower on the Yukon River, planning for oil spill response in marine
waters, incorporating climate change in Nation Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)
documents, maritime operations in the Arctic, practical approaches to flood risks and
erosion, mercury and permafrost, and more.
The Regional Tribal Operations Committee and University of Alaska Fairbanks-
Cooperative Extension Service will have an evening social for the conference on
Wednesday, February 8, beginning at 5:00 p.m. The annual Daniel Ellanak Award for
Environmental Excellence will be presented during the public event.
The AFE Board of Directors will present its annual awards for environmental excellence,
recognizing an individual and organization at the lunch keynote on Thursday, February
9. AFE also features a film festival on Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Popcorn and
beverages will be provided for your viewing pleasure.
AFE is one of the few venues where individuals from various interests come together
in the interest of the environment. Often the sessions are attended by Alaska Natives,
residents from rural Alaska communities, military leaders, conservationists and
environmentalists, private industry, scientists, regulators, rural landfill operators,
students, and local, tribal, state and federal government agencies. Considered one of the
premier environmental events in Alaska, AFE attendees come from areas throughout
Alaska and the world. Past participants have traveled from across the United States,
Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. The conference draws
participants from rural Alaska, state and federal agencies, non profit organizations,
middle/high school and university students, private businesses, the energy industry, and
military departments.
AFE 2012 runs February 6-10, at the Dena’ina Convention Center in Anchorage.
For detailed information on the keynotes and breakout sessions, visit our website at:
www.akforum.com.
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Brief biographies for our keynotes:
J. Michael Fay
Conservationist
Explorer-in-Residence
Photograph by Andrew Howley/NGS
Mike Fay has spent his life as a naturalist—from
the
Sierra Nevadas and the Maine woods as a boy, to
Alaska and Central America in college, to North
Africa and the depths of the central African forest and savannas for the last 25 years.
Fay has worked for the Wildlife Conservation Society of the Bronx since 1991. He
received a B.S. in 1978 from the University of Arizona and spent six years in the Peace
Corps as a botanist in national parks in Tunisia and the savannas of the Central African
Republic. He joined the staff of the Missouri Botanical Garden in 1984 to do a floristic
study on a mountain range on Sudan's western border, but ended up doing his Ph.D. on
the western lowland gorilla. It was at this time that Fay first entered the forests of central
Africa, surveying large forest blocks and creating and managing the Dzanga-Sangha and
Nouabale-Ndoki parks in the Central African Republic and Congo.
In 1996, Fay flew over the forests of Congo and Gabon and realized there was a vast,
intact forest corridor spanning the two countries from the Oubangui to the Atlantic
Ocean. In 1997, he walked the entire corridor, over 2,000 miles, surveying trees, wildlife,
and human impacts on 12 uninhabited forest blocks. Called Megatransect, the project
had the objective of bringing to the world's attention the last pristine forest in central
Africa and the need for protection. This work led to a historic initiative by the Gabonese
government to create a system of 13 national parks in Gabon, making up some 11,000
square miles (28,500 square kilometers).
Jason F. McLennan, Founder - Living Building Challenge
Considered one of the most influential individuals in the green
building movement today, Jason F. McLennan's work has
made a strong impact on the shape and direction of green
building in the United States and Canada and he is a much
sought after presenter and consultant on a wide variety of
green building and sustainability topics around the world.
Jason is the founder and creator of the Living Building
Challenge, widely considered the world's most progressive and
stringent green building program. His work in the sustainable
design field has been published or reviewed in dozens of
journals, magazines conference proceedings and books including Time Magazine,
National Geographic, The New York Times, Architecture, Architectural Record, Dwell,
Plenty, Metropolis, NY Times, The Globe and Mail, The World and I, Ecostructure,
Greensource, Arcade and Environmental Design and Construction Magazine. He is the
author of four books; The Philosophy of Sustainable Design, The Dumb Architect's
Guide to Glazing Selection, The Ecological Engineer and Zugunruhe. The Philosophy of
Sustainable Design has been used as a textbook in over seventy universities and colleges
and is distributed widely throughout Europe, North America and Asia.
David J. Hayes, Deputy Secretary - Department of the
Interior
David J. Hayes was confirmed as Deputy Secretary of the
Department of the Interior on May 20, 2009 by unanimous vote
of the United States Senate. He was nominated for the position
on February 27, 2009, after serving as a leader in President
Obama's Transition Team, heading the agency review process for
the Department of Energy, Department of Agriculture,
Department of the Interior and Environmental Protection Agency.
Deputy Secretary Hayes is the second highest ranking official at
the Department of the Interior. By statute, he serves as the
Department's Chief Operating Officer (COO) and has authority over all of the
Department's bureaus and agencies. He is involved in implementing the Secretary's
priorities for the Department, including promoting conservation initiatives such as the
Administration's "America's Great Outdoors" agenda; encouraging renewable energy
development on our public lands and offshore resources; developing conventional
energy resources safely and responsibly; fulfilling our trust responsibilities to American
Indians and Alaskan Natives; managing our nation's water supplies sustainably; and
other matters relating to Interior's mission to conserve our nation's natural and cultural
resources.
Dennis McLerran, US EPA Regional Administrator
Dennis McLerran, US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Regional Administrator, was appointed by President Barack
Obama to serve as the Regional Administrator (RA) for Region
10, leading a staff of 650 employees, with responsibility for an
annual budget of $500 million. He was sworn in on February 22,
2010.As RA, Dennis oversees the implementation and
enforcement of the federal environmental rules and regulations in
the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska, including
271 tribal governments in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.
Before moving to EPA, Dennis served as Executive Director of
the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, a state chartered regional
agency that adopts and enforces air quality standards that protect the health of 3.5
million Washington residents. As Executive Director, he led the development of an
innovative strategy to reduce emissions at the ports of Seattle, Tacoma and Metro
Vancouver. Prior to that, he served as City Attorney for the City of Port Townsend and
Director of the Seattle Department of Construction and Land Use. Dennis has over 20
years experience as an advocate, attorney and administrator. Dennis received his
bachelor's degree from the University of Washington and a J.D. from the Seattle
University School of Law.
Nancy Lord, Alaskan Author
Nancy Lord, Alaska's Writer Laureate for 2008-10, holds a
liberal arts degree from Hampshire College and an M.F.A. in
creative writing from Vermont College. In addition to being an
independent writer based in Homer, she fished commercially for
many years and has, more recently, worked as a naturalist and
historian on adventure cruise ships. She is the author of three
short fiction collections (most recently The Man Who Swam with
Beavers, Coffee House Press, 2001) and five books of literary
nonfiction (most recently Early Warming: Crisis and Response in
the Climate-Changed North, Counterpoint Press, 2011.) She
teaches creative writing part-time at the Kachemak Bay Branch of Kenai Peninsula
College and in the low-residency graduate writing program at the University of Alaska
Anchorage. Her awards include fellowships from the Alaska State Council on the Arts
and the Rasmuson Foundation, a Pushcart Prize, and residencies at a number of artist
communities.
John Kozij, Director General - Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development
Canada
John Kozij is the Director General of the Northern Strategic Policy Branch, Aboriginal
Affairs and Northern Development Canada (AANDC). Prior to this, Mr. Kozij worked
as the director of the Strategic Policy Integration Division of the Northern Affairs
Organization of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada and as the director of Aboriginal
skills and employment issues at Human Resources and Social Development Canada.
He has also worked at the Privy Council Office and at the Canadian International
Development Agency as a senior economist; holding a masters degree in development
economics. Mr. Kozij's overseas work experience includes directing operations of an
American medical NGO on the Afghan border in Pakistan and as an extended volunteer
in a refugee camp in Thailand.
AANDC supports Aboriginal people (First Nations, Inuit and Métis) and Northerners in
their efforts to: improve social well-being and economic prosperity; develop healthier,
more sustainable communities; and participate more fully in Canada's political, social and
economic development - to the benefit of all Canadians. AANDC is one of the federal
government departments responsible for meeting the Government of Canada's obligations
and commitments to First Nations, Inuit and Métis, and for fulfilling the federal
government's constitutional responsibilities in the North. Most of the Department's
programs, representing a majority of its spending - are delivered through partnerships
with Aboriginal communities and federal-provincial or federal-territorial.
