Get Wild: How Tompkins Conservation works to Reorient the Trajectory of Life on Earth Toward Beauty, Diversity, Wildness, and Health

Presented by Gwen Obermeyer

Recorded via ZOOM on Monday, September 20, 2021

Co-Sponsored by the UIS Sustainability Committee

It is important to ask ourselves not only what the Earth can do for us, but what we can do to support the systems we live in as well. The protection of biological diversity in various ecosystems not only saves endangered species, but it also serves to aid the people who reside in these systems. Accomplishing worldwide conservation requires a hasty shift from the industrial-growth economy paradigm to one of advocacy and activism for our planet.

At the crossroads of business, advocacy, and activism exists Tompkins Conservation, a nonprofit organization that believes a shift in the current paradigm might be accomplished through the creation of new parklands on land and sea. Gwen Obermeyer, former Director of Development for Tompkins Conservation, will describe the organization’s approach to developing new protected spaces to reverse the extinction crisis, help mitigate climate chaos, and support human rights including access to clean air and water. She will explain how damaged landscapes and seascapes can rebound and human communities can flourish as a consequence of conservation, and why there is no longer room for inaction when it comes to the health of our planet. We are all called upon to do our part to create a healthy future for all life. In the words of Edward Abbey: “Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.”

Gwen Obermeyer is the former Director of Development for Tompkins Conservation and an adjunct faculty member at Park University (Missouri), has 20 years of conservation experience, focusing on the importance of supporting protected spaces and rewilding across the globe. She received her M.P.A. in Nonprofit Administration from the University of Missouri Kansas City. She has also studied as a Harvard Fellow and abroad at La Sorbonne.