Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

Leopold Center hosts Australian scientist June 7

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May 25, 2007

AMES, Iowa -- An Australian scientist will share how woolgrowers in Tasmania are learning to follow Aldo Leopold's land ethic in becoming strong conservationists as well productive farmers.

Jann Williams will present "An Australian perspective on the multiple dimensions of managing biodiversity in production landscapes" when she visits Iowa State University on Thursday, June 7. Her seminar will begin at 1:30 p.m. in Room 233 of Science II on the ISU campus.

Williams is an adjunct professor at the University of Tasmania in Australia. She is national coordinator of the Native Vegetation and Biodiversity subprogram of Land, Water & Wool, a five-year program of the wool industry to to manage natural resources sustainably and profitably. Williams works closely with woolgrowers to help them adopt natural resource management practices and restore native pastures and bushland. More than 70 families have been directly involved with research projects on their land, and another 2,750 woolgrowers have worked indirectly with the program.

Williams also manages a small business that provides sustainable management consultation to government, industry and NGOs throughout Australia. She is trained as a landscape ecologist, and her research focus is the conservation and management of biodiversity in production landscapes. She has written or edited more than 150 scientific publications and chairs the editorial board for Ecological Management and Restoration journal.

In 2000 and 2001, she was president of the 1,500-member Ecological Society of Australia. Currently, she is a national steering committee member for the Grain & Graze Biodiversity Project and a member of the WildCountry Science Council of eminent ecologists who provide scientific advice on key principals related to biodiversity conservation in Australia.

The seminar is hosted by the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture and the ISU Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management. 

For more info contact:

Laura Miller,
Leopold Center communications,
(515) 294-5272, lwmiller@iastate.edu 

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