BARD IN CHINA WILL PRESENT A TALK ON ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION IN CHINA WITH LU ZHI AND DANIEL VIEDERMAN ON THURSDAY, APRIL 19
ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, NY-Bard in China, the Bard Center for Environmental Policy, the Programs of Asian Studies, Ecology and the Community, Regional, and Environmental Studies at Bard College will present a talk on environmental conservation in China by Lu Zhi and Daniel Viederman on Thursday, April 19, at 7:30 p.m. The talk, which will include a discussion of the various approaches to conservation taken in China-including both governmental and non-governmental efforts-and of the giant panda and its habitat, is free and open to the public and will be held in Room 115 of the Olin Language Center. A brief introduction by Bard professor of biology, William Maple will precede the discussion.
Dr. Lu Zhi was selected
by the New York Times as one of "China's bright young stars" and called "a leading light in China's nascent conservation movement." She is associate professor of biology at Peking University, visiting scholar at the Harvard University Center for Population and Development Studies, and the former Species and Protected Areas Program Manager of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in China.Lu began her work in conservation with longterm extensive field research on the giant panda between 1985 and 1992, and spent m
ost of those seven years tracking the pandas in the wild in the rugged mountains of western China, often without adequate food or warmth for herself. The PBS television program World of National Geographic featured Lu and Professor Pan Wenshi as they chronicled a panda family's behavior for over a year in "Secrets of the Wild Panda." After finishing her undergraduate work and Ph.D. at Peking University, she received a fellowship from the National Institutes of Health in Maryland to study molecular genetics and its application to conservation. While serving as program officer for the WWF China office, Lu was in charge of its giant panda conservation and Tibet program. During that period she developed a greater interest in the social and economic factors that have had a critical impact on conservation and natural resource management. Her work has been widely acknowledged and published in scientific publications as well as popular periodicals; in 1998 she was named one of the "Top Ten Young Professionals of the Year" in China.Dan Viederman is the vice president of corporate responsibility for Citizens Funds and the former chief executive officer of the China Program of the WWF, for which he established a Beijing office, the first international environmental nongovernmental organization (NGO) in China. Prior to that he was the country director of Catholic Relief Services in China, a program associate at the Coro Foundation in San Francisco, and a faculty member at Chongqing Architecture University in Sichuan, China. At Citizens Funds, Viederman manages social and environmental initiatives, including the screening of companies for investment purposes under the firm's social and environmental criteria, as well as shareholder activism and other corporate citizenship initiatives. He is a graduate of Yale University and received a master's degree in international affairs from Columbia University. Viederman is also the author of numerous articles on environmental issues in the People's Republic of China. He is a member of the scientific committee of the National Giant Panda Foundation, vice president of the International Fund for China's Environment, and trustee of Dwight Hall at Yale University.
Additional funding for this program has been received from the New York Council for the Humanities. Bard in China is a new program that has been established to enhance learning from and about China through events and exchanges. For further information, call 845-758-7388 or e-mail [email protected].
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(3.20.01)