Nov. 11, 2008
Wetlands professor from the Netherlands to
speak at UWSP
Jay O’Keeffe, a professor in wetlands ecosystems in Delft, the
Netherlands, will speak at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
on Tuesday, Nov. 18 at 7 p.m. in the Dreyfus University Center
Theater.
Part of the GEM Critical Issues International Seminar Series, hosted
by the Global Environmental Management Education Center located
within the College of Natural Resources at UWSP, the lecture is free
and open to the public. O’Keeffe will present “A brief Mystery of
Time: Long-term Sustainability vs. Short-term Economics.”
“There is so much policy and legislation emphasizing the importance
of long-term sustainability, biodiversity, conservation of resources
etc. but when it comes down to it, short-term economic
considerations almost always get the vote,” O’Keeffe says. In his
presentation at UWSP, O’Keeffe will explore how these competing
goals play out in the stewardship of water resources.
O’Keeffe, currently professor of the Wetland Ecosystems Core in the
Department of Environmental Resources at UNESCO-IHE, Delft, took the
post in 2004 after 21 years of research in South Africa. O’Keeffe’s
main research interests are in rivers and in catchment management
planning. He was involved in the development of the environmental
principles which were included in the 1998 South African Water Act,
ground-breaking legislation which has been acknowledged worldwide.
In the past few years he has concentrated on environmental water
allocations, in particular the flow requirements to maintain the
ecological functioning of rivers. O’Keeffe is a strong advocate of
integrated water resource management, and has applied a
multi-disciplinary approach to his research. As director of the
Institute for Water Research at Rhodes University in the Eastern
Cape of South Africa, he facilitated the development of teams of
hydrologists, ecologists, water chemists, hydraulics engineers,
geomorphologists, social scientists and water managers, who could
work together to solve problems at a catchment scale.
“Water issues on the Water Planet” is the theme for the 2008-2009
GEM Critical Issues International Seminar Series. O’Keeffe is the
second of four scheduled speakers, each of whom brings an
international perspective to the discussion of the balancing of
competing demands on limited water resources.
More information about series speakers is on the Web at
www.uwsp.edu/cnr/gem. The
series is sponsored by GEM with funding through the USDA Cooperative
State Research, Education and Extension Service and the USDA Natural
Resources Conservation Service.
Contact: Ron Tschida, communications coordinator of GEM,
715-346-4266 or
Ron.Tschida@uwsp.edu
