Prairie and Savanna Restoration Symposium March 27

Reed Noss, one of the nation's leading conservation biologists, will be the keynote speaker at the Prairie and Savanna Restoration: The State of the Art and Science symposium at Illinois State University's Alumni Center on Friday, March 27.  The symposium is in honor of the retirement of Illinois State prairie and savanna scientist Roger Anderson.

Noss' 4 p.m. keynote address, "Fire, Big Animals and Bad Weather: Origins and Maintenance of Southern Grasslands," is free and open to the public.  Registration cost for other sessions in the day-long symposium is $40.  An optional evening banquet is an additional $25.  For a complete list of symposium speakers and information on registration visit www.bio.illinoisstate.edu/psr or contact Angelo Capparella at (309) 438-5124 or apcappar@ilstu.edu

The symposium will include presentations by numerous experts in the area of prairie and savanna habitat restoration.  Speakers will include representatives from the Nature Conservancy, the Illinois Natural History Survey, the Illinois State Museum, the Morton Arboretum, the National Audubon Society, the Parklands Foundation, and several universities. 

Reed Noss is the Davis-Shine Professor of Conservation Biology at the University of Central Florida, president of the Florida Institute for Conservation Science and an international consultant and lecturer on biodiversity, conservation biology and habitat restoration.  During his more than 35 years in the environmental field, Noss has worked as an ecologist for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the Florida Natural Areas Inventory and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.