Speakers

Paul Stamets

Solutions from the Underground: Using Fungi to Help Save the World

President of Fungi Perfecti, a mail-order business supplying “mycotechnologies” to mushroom cultivators worldwide, has: discovered four new species of mushrooms; pioneered countless techniques in edible and medicinal mushroom cultivation and in “fungal bioremediation;” and written six books including Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms, The Mushroom Cultivator, Psilocybin Mushrooms of the World, Mycelium Running: How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World, and many articles and scholarly papers.

A dedicated hiker, conservationist and explorer, his passion is to preserve, protect and clone as many ancestral strains of mushrooms as possible from the old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest.

Erica Fernandez

Si, Se Puede! (Yes, We Can!)

This remarkable eighteen-year-old environmental justice activist helped mobilize her diverse community in Oxnard, California to defeat the placement of a liquefied natural gas facility just offshore.

Erica Fernandez was born and raised in Michoacán, Mexico till the age of ten, where she became a remarkable young environmental activist in Oxnard, California. Initially motivated to fight air pollution because of her asthma, she helped mobilize her whole diverse community, from Latino youth to the Sierra Club, to defeat the placement of a liquefied natural gas facility just offshore, successfully resisting a multinational billion-dollar corporation.

Ray Anderson

Sustainability in Action

The nationís most inspiring green business visionary leader and Interface, Inc., his $1 billion global carpet-manufacturing company, is nearly half-way to a zero environmental footprint by 2020. He shows how sustainability and ethics are far better paths to business performance and profit.

Ray Anderson is the founder and chairman of the environmentally groundbreaking company, Interface Inc., the world's largest manufacturer of modular carpet and a leading producer of commercial fabrics. Anderson, the author of Mid-Course Correction and a former co-chair of the Presidentís Council on Sustainable Development, was named one of TIME Internationalís Heroes for the Environment in 2007.

Kavita Ramdas

Shakti, Shanti, Sangam: Power, Peace and the Politics of Change

The president and CEO of the Global Fund for Women, among the most effective international leaders empowering women globally, explains how listening to and learning from women community leaders is the key to building sustainable and effective movements for social justice, equality and peace.

Kavita N. Ramdas is one of the most effective international leaders working to empower women around the world by increasing girlsí access to education, defending womenís health and reproductive rights, preventing violence against women, and advancing womenís political participation at all levels.

Alexandra Cousteau

Saving Our Water Planet

Alexandra Cousteau , born in 1976, granddaughter of the legendary Jacques-Yves Cousteau, is a leading activist and advocate for the conservation and restoration of the planet's oceans and sustainable management of its water resources. A member of the third generation of the Cousteau family to devote their lives to the natural world, she learned to scuba dive with her grandfather when she was seven and hasn't stopped exploring since. Raised in France and the U.S., Alexandra, who co-founded EarthEcho International with her brother Philippe in 2000, is a 2008 National Geographic Emerging Explorer and has spoken to audiences at the UN, Harvard University and the Smithsonian, among numerous other institutions. Alexandra founded her own organization, Blue Legacy, in 2008 and is preparing to launch a global initiative, the Blue Campaign.

Janine Benyus

Natureís 100 Best: Top Biomimicry Solutions to Environmental Crises

Janine Benyus is a biologist, innovation consultant, and author of six books, including Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. Her company, the Biomimicry Guild, helps clients such as HOK Architects, Interface, Herman-Miller, Kohler, and Seventh Generation consult life's genius to create sustainable products and processes. Janine also co-founded the non-profit Biomimicry Institute, a biomimicry design portal on the web, and the Innovation for Conservation program to conserve the habitat of the mentor organisms. Her latest book project is Nature's 100 Best, a look at what ingenious (and often endangered) species can teach us about becoming true natives.

Dune Lankard

Sustainable Solutions Over Centuries: A New Business Model

This Eyak Athabaskan native from the Copper River Delta region of Alaska and lifelong commercial fisherman became a community activist and preservationist when the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill desecrated his homelands and waters. He describes the preservation of ecosystems and people as the way to maintain healthy thriving economies for businesses and communities into the future.

Dune is dedicating his life to protecting human rights and the environment. Selected by Time magazine as one of its "Heroes of the Planet," he is a co-founder of the RED OIL Network (Resisting Environmental Degradation of Indigenous Lands).

David Orr

Some Like It Hot, But Lots Donít: The Changing Climate of US Politics

One of the nationís most important architects of environmental literacy in higher education and a leading light of the sustainability movement, this visionary educator will outline a national climate change policy for the incoming administration developed by the Presidential Climate Action Project (PCAP).

David W. Orr, professor and chair of the Environmental Studies Program at Oberlin College and an award-winning scholar and leader in the sustainability movement, renowned for his pioneering work on environmental literacy and ecological design, is the author of The Last Refuge: Patriotism, Politics, and the Environment in an Age of Terror; The Nature of Design; Earth in Mind; and Ecological Literacy; and co-editor of The Global Predicament and The Campus and Environmental Responsibility. At Oberlin, he directed a collaboration of students, staff and some of the worldís most innovative designers and architects to build a state-of-the-art green building, the Environmental Studies Center.

Greg Watson

Twelve Degrees of Freedom: Lessons Learned from Thirty-five Years of Environmental Activism

His exemplary contributions have ranged from launching community gardens and farmersí markets to serving as Massachusettsí Commissioner of Agriculture, teaching environmental science, working with low-income communities, developing sustainable technologies, and helping create the nationís first offshore wind farm. Now senior advisor for Clean Energy Technology within the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, he describes how to foster unprecedented collaborations in support of comprehensive design solutions.

Greg Watsonís long life of exemplary, cutting-edge public service has included serving as: executive director of the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative; director of educational programs for Second Nature; director of The Nature Conservancy's Eastern Regional Office; commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Food and Agriculture; and executive director of the New Alchemy Institute.

Sandra Steingraber

The Environmental Life of Children from Placenta to Puberty

internationally recognized expert on environmental links to cancer and reproductive health and author of the award-winning books: Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment, and Having Faith: An Ecologistís Journey to Motherhood explains why pediatric environmental health activism is the civil rights movement of our era.

Lucas Benitez

Fighting for Justice for Farmworkers

Lucas Benitez, a farmworker and co-director of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, originally from Guerrero, Mexico, came to the U.S. on his own when he was 16 to help support his five brothers and sisters. By organizing fellow migrant farmworkers, Lucas helped secure the first wage increase for tomato pickers in 20 years, exposed and stopped two slavery rings, and launched a Labor Action Rights program that collected nearly $100,000 in back wages. In 1999 Lucas was the recipient of the prestigious Do Something BRICK Award, which recognizes and honors ten outstanding leaders under the age of 30.

Christine Loh

The "Development" Imperative for Asians

How Asians look at development will have a great impact on Earthís environmental and ecological future. With the threat of climate change, the world must collaborate much more meaningfully, but will that happen fast enough? This internationally acclaimed environmental activist has worked extensively in Chinese business and government and now heads Civic Exchange, a Hong Kong think tank. She shares her perspectives on key levers for restorative development in Asia.

Christine Loh, with a stellar background in law, business, politics and media, is a leading voice on public policy in Hong Kong and internationally. Formerly Loh served on the Hong Kong Legislative Council and had a successful career in business. She writes extensively about politics, energy/climate change, and sustainable development in mainstream and academic publications, has written and edited many books, and is an international adviser to many prestigious groups, including the G8+5 Climate Change Dialogue. A member of Asia Societyís International Council (and co-chair of human rights in China), Christine has been widely recognized for her achievements, including as one of TIMEís ìHeroes of the Environment.î

Naomi Klein

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

One of the most important political and economic thinkers of our time, this Canadian journalist and author (The Shock Doctrine and No Logo) penetrates the veils of corporate globalization to expose transnational capitalís most ruthless strategies yet to exploit catastrophe from Baghdad to New Orleans. She portrays her vision of how peopleís movements can counter the disaster of disaster capitalism.

Naomi Klein writes a regular, internationally syndicated column for The Nation and The Guardian. Her reporting from Iraq for Harperís Magazine won the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, and she co-produced The Take with director Avi Lewis, an award-winning feature documentary about Argentinaís occupied factories.

Rebecca Moore

Google Earth: Visualizing Change, Mapping the Future

Rebecca Moore is a computer scientist and longtime software professional. At Google, she conceived and now manages the Google Earth Outreach program, which supports nonprofits, communities and indigenous peoples around the world in applying Google's mapping tools to pressing problems in areas such as environmental conservation, human rights, cultural preservation and creating a sustainable society.

Rick Reed

Collaborating on a Grand Scale: Think Systemically and Act Cooperatively

Rick Reed is a senior advisor to the Garfield Foundation, leading its collaborative clean energy project, RE-AMP (a community of 10 foundations and 70 NGOs using system-mapping and shared learning to align their clean energy strategies across seven states in the upper Midwest). Thanks, in large part, to RE-AMPís activities, governors throughout the U.S. heartland, in late 2007, committed themselves to reducing global warming pollution from their states by 80% over the next 40 years. With a background in organic farming and molecular biology, Rick has been working in the fields of philanthropy and sustainability for nearly 20 years.

Peter Blaze Corcoran

Professor of Environmental Studies and Environmental Education at Florida Gulf Coast University

Peter Blaze Corcoran is Professor of Environmental Studies and Environmental Education at Florida Gulf Coast University.

He is also director of the Center for Environmental and Sustainability Education. He has served as Coordinator of "University Colloquium: A Sustainable Future," an ecological literacy course required of all students. He is a past president of the North American Association for Environmental Education and immediate past chair of the Ecological and Environmental Education Special Interest Group of American Educational Research Association.

Peter is active in international environmental education, with particular research interests in the Central Asian Republics and South Pacific Island Nations. He has written on environmental philosophy, community education, wholistic education, and the philosophy and pedagogy of environmental education.

He is currently working with several organizations at the local, national, and international levels, including Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, the President's Council of the National Wildlife Federation, and the Earth Charter Initiative.

Peter Neill

Director of The World Oceans Observatory

THE WORLD OCEAN OBSERVATORY is an Internet-based place of exchange for ocean information, educational services, and public discourse about the ocean defined as an "integrated, global, social system," thereby relating the ocean to climate, biodiversity, fresh water, food, energy, human health, trade, transportation, policy, governance, finance, coastal development, and cultural traditions.

W2O provides comprehensive links to ocean issues and organizations through its news service, monthly letter, directory, catalogue of on-line resources, and interactive events focused on specific ocean questions and providing responsible science and information to institutions, experts, students and teachers, and curious citizens around the world.

W2O advocates through communications, building public awareness and political will for ocean sustainability through international networks, partnerships, organizations, educators, and individuals.

Russell Libby

MOFGA Excutive Director

He has led MOFGA's growth over the past decade as the organization moved to the new Common Ground Education Center in Unity, expanded the Agricultural Services and Education programs, and created a subsidiary to run the Certification program.

Russell planted his first garden after getting free seeds at the end of fourth grade. His involvement with MOFGA started at the first Common Ground Country Fair in 1977 where he saw a connection between local, organic food and a strong Maine economy. He began participating in the Consortium for Maine Food Self-Reliance in 1979, and joined the MOFGA Board of Directors in 1983. After a dozen years on the Board, including two years as President, Russell became Executive Director in 1995. He has led MOFGA's growth over the past decade as the organization moved to the new Common Ground Education Center in Unity, expanded the Agricultural Services and Education programs, and created a subsidiary to run the Certification program. Russell has a wide range of agricultural affiliations, including 10 years as Research Director at the Maine Department of Agriculture. He currently serves on the boards of: the Agricultural Council of Maine; the University of Maine Board of Agriculture; Maine Farmland Trust; Eat Local Foods Coalition; National Organic Coalition; and FEDCO Seeds. He has a degree in economics from Bowdoin College and a Master's in resource economics from the University of Maine. With his wife, Mary Anne, and 3 daughters, he operates Three Sisters Farm (a small diversified farm) in Mount Vernon. He served three years on the School Board, currently chairs the Comprehensive Plan Committee, and serves as a Selectman. He also writes poetry in his spare time. His first book, Balance: A Late Pastoral, was published in 2007.

Deb Soule

Local herbalist, Author and Avena Botanicals founder

Deb Soule is an herbalist, gardener, teacher and author of A Womanís Book of Herbs. Raised in a small town in western Maine, Deb began organic gardening and studying the medicinal uses of herbs at age 16 alongside the internationally known medical herbalist Mary Bove. Debís faith in the healing qualities of plants and desire to make organic herbs accessible to women and families living in rural areas, led her to found Avena Botanicals Herbal Apothecary in 1985. Five years earlier, while enrolled as a student at College of the Atlantic, Deb lived in Nepal close to three Tibetan monasteries. She was deeply influenced by the Tibetan peoples commitment to ease physical symptoms and mental and emotional upsets through plants, prayer and other spiritual practices. Debís passion for plants, gardens and healing and her commitment to sharing herbal knowledge with others is central to her work. She frequently is a guest-lecturer at various conferences as well as an instructor for botany and horticulture students, garden clubs, and medical students. In 2005 People, Places and Plants magazine named Deb as one of the 50 most influential gardeners in the Northeast.

Kathy Freund

Executive Director The Independent Transportation Network

Katherine Freund is the founder and President of the Independent Transportation Network®, and ITNAmerica™. Katherine has a Master of Arts degree in Public Policy from the Edmund S. Muskie School of Public Service and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

She is a past National Transit Institute Fellow and served for nine years on the Transportation Research Board's Committee on the Safe Mobility of Seniors where she chaired of the Alternative Transportation Subcommittee. She currently Chairs the Transportation Research Board's Joint Subcommittee on Transportation Options for Seniors. She is past Chair of the Task Force to Study the Safe Mobility of Maine's Aging Population.

J. Carl Ganter

Director Circle of Blue

J. Carl Ganter is a photojournalist, writer, broadcast reporter, and co-founder of Circle of Blue, a nonprofit journalism project covering the global freshwater crisis.

His reporting has ranged from coverage of the AIDS crisis in Southeast Asia for Time magazine to the exoneration of a wrongfully convicted murderer in Illinois. A consultant for the Pacific Institute, he also serves on the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars ìNavigating Peaceî water working group. He is a member of the Clinton Global Initiative, a visiting instructor at the University of North Carolina and the Poynter Institute, and co-founder of MediaVia, a multimedia journalism firm

Tom Linzey

Co-founder: The Community, Environmental Legal Defense Fund

Thomas Linzey, is co-founder of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit providing free and affordable legal services to grassroots groups and municipal governments and seeking creative legal strategies for democratic control over corporations (especially in agriculture).

Linzey has run as an independent for state Attorney General, serves as coordinator of the Franklin County Coalition, is a resident lecturer for the "Democracy Schools" - weekend seminars held across the U.S. that seek to provoke critical thinking about the role of corporations, and is a frequent lecturer to groups and municipal governments across the country.

gkisedtanamoogk

Wampanoag elder, Teacher, and Indigenous Nation cultural advocate

gkisedtanamoogk is a Mashpeeof the Wampanoag Tribes, a brother to the Passamaquoddy and the Wabanaki confederacy. He is a teacher of Native and Peace Studies at the University of Maine and is currently a member of several regional and national aboriginal rights affiliations.

He has worked to strengthen the indigenous treaty rights in the United States unjustly detained in the United States for four months unable to cross freely to his Canadian home. He also works in Indigenous Human Community and social development; Ceremony and Spirituality; Indigenous law; as well as Indigenous Nation, Social, political, legal and cultural advocacy.

June LaCombe

The Greening of Art

June LaCombe has taken her passion for the environment and uses it in her art to create something called environmental art and eco-art which is an activist arts movement now recognized in art history. June has compiled a rich visual imagery of people and projects throughout the world where artists are redefining the role of an artist in society and calling on the power of art to spark environmental action.

Mike Tetreault

Director of The Nature Conservancy

Michael Tetreault, Director of The Nature Conservancy in Maine, has dedicated his career to conservation. Mike received his BA-Environmental Studies, from Brown University, and MS-Field Naturist Program, from the University of Vermont, and he has studied natural resource management in Kenya, Mexico, and New England. Starting his career teaching wilderness leadership and environmental education at Teton Science School in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, he then served as a staff scientist at Appalachian Mountain Club. Mike joined The Nature Conservancy in 1998, and has directed successful conservation programs for the Conservancy from Colorado to New England.

Anita Sanchez

The Power Of Positive Change: Positive Image To Positive Action

Dr. Anita Sanchez is a national and international consultant in organization development and societal change for business, government, and non-profit local, national and international organizations. Anita specializes in large systems change, strategic planning, executive-level coaching and team building, global diversity workplace strategies and initiatives. She has deep knowledge of the power of positive change, positive change, in particular the strength that positive images have on our bodies, mind and spirits that help lead to positive action. She is renowned for her strategic insights, creative intervention designs and delivery, as well as her skill at bringing together the wisdom in the heads and the hearts of individuals and their organizations. Based in Boulder, Colorado, Anita is a Latina of Mexican-American, Aztec and Osage ancestry.