PULLMAN, Wash. — A conference examining the natural and man-made environmental problems in the Cascadia
bioregion from Alaska to California, scheduled Oct. 28-30 in Tacoma, is expected to draw 500 professionals concerned with
ecosystem restoration.
The “Ecosystem Restoration: Turning the Tide” conference is being conducted by the Society for Ecological
Restoration-Northwest as part of the chapter’s annual meeting. Washington State University’s Conference and Institutes office is
managing the event being held in the Tacoma Sheraton Hotel.
The audience will include natural resource planners, consultants, managers, government policy makers, community and
environmental groups, and restorationists. Participants will select from six concurrent sessions with over 125 speakers making
presentations on a wide variety of ecosystem issues. Included will be presentations on salmon recovery and the immediate need
for broad-based restoration initiatives in the Pacific Northwest.
Within west coast watersheds, legal mandates and growing human population have increased the importance and urgency
of habitat restoration, according to Sono Hashisaki and Michael P. Williams, conference co-chairs.
Featured presentations will be delivered by Charles Wilkinson, lawyer, author, and noted authority on natural resource
law, who will deliver Thursday’s banquet address; Ted Strong, executive director of the Columbia River Intertribal Fish
Commission; Shirley Solomon, former director of the Northwest Renewable Resources Center, and current director of “Long
Live the Kings” Salmon Project and chair of the Skagit Watershed Council; David Marshall, director of the Fraser Basin
Council; and Bruce Crawford, director of the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission.
The conference will give participants the opportunity to attend different general sessions or seminars regarding the topic of
restoration. In addition, there will be a three-day Riparian Symposium and a Symposium on Community and Culture.
Pre-conference short courses and pre- and post- conference field trips also have been arranged for conference participants.
The conference is presented in cooperation with the Center for Environmental Education at WSU, the Center for
Streamside Studies at the University of Washington, and Cascadia Quest and its affiliate, the King County World Conservation
Corps. For full information, call WSU Conferences and Institutes at 800/942-4978 or 509/335-3530 or e-mail
wsuconf@wsu.edu. Additional information can also be found on the SERNW homepage:
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Editors and reporters: Featured speakers Bruce Crawford, Shirley Solomon, Ted Strong and conference co-chair Sono
Hashisaki will be available for interviews at 10 a.m. Wednesday,
Oct. 27, on the Rotunda of the Tacoma Sheraton Convention Center.
