The John Wesley Powell Audubon Society and Illinois Wesleyan’s Environmental Studies Program will sponsor four programs this fall. All programs start at 7 p.m. in CNS C101:

• The east-side highway environmental assessment update will be discussed tonight (Monday, Sept. 19) with representatives from Clark Dietz Engineers. The proposed transportation corridor would address projected growth. The presentation is co-sponsored by Friends of Kickapoo Creek.

• Wind and wildlife will be discussed on Tuesday, Sept. 27 with Keith Shank from Illinois Department of Natural Resources. He will address commercial wind turbines, wind energy development and its potential growth. The presentation is co-sponsored by the Prairie Group of the Sierra Club, Urbana.

• On Tuesday, Oct. 18, the film “Green Fire: Aldo Leopold and a Land Ethic for Our Time” explores legendary environmentalist Aldo Leopold.

• The “Green Fire” narrator, Curt Meine, also will speak Nov. 3 on “From Wild Lands to Working Lands to Urban Lands: Connecting Conservation Across the Landscape.” His talk is co-sponsored by The Ames Library, Biology Department, and Environmental Studies Program.

America’s red rock canyon lands wilderness, located in southern Utah, draws pilgrims from across the country and around the world.  It is the largest network of undesignated wilderness lands remaining in the lower 48 states.

Illinois Wesleyan’s GREENetwork and Sierra Student Coalition; The Ecology Action Center; John Wesley Powell Audubon Society; and the Illinois Clergy and Laity for Utah Wilderness will host a traveling presentation entitled “Wild Utah: America’s Red Rock Wilderness” on Tuesday, September 20 at 7 p.m. at the Hansen Student Center (300 Beecher St.)

The speaker will be Clayton Daughenbaugh, conservation organizer with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and Chairperson of the Sierra Club’s National Wildlands and Wilderness Committee.

The program includes “Wild Utah”, a multi-media slideshow documenting citizen efforts to designate public lands in southern Utah’s spectacular canyon country as part of the National Wilderness Preservation System. This 15-minute journey through red rock splendor, narrated by Robert Redford, invigorates and motivates viewers to participate in the movement to protect these unique lands.  It was made possible through the generous donation of photos, music and words from concerned Utahans who wish to pass this heritage on to future generations.

The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, Sierra Club and their partners in the Utah Wilderness Coalition seek to gain local support for the “Citizens’ Proposal” to protect wilderness areas in Utah’s red rock canyon lands.  Comprehensive legislation is pending in Congress and administrative decisions by the Department of Interior are ongoing.

For more information contact:  Carl Teichman at cteich@iwu.edu or Clayton Daughenbaugh at claytonhd@xmission.com

Thursday, Sept. 8, 12-1 p.m.

Joslin Atrium, Memorial Center

Speaker: Ken Meter, president of Crossroads Resource Center

Grab your lunch (and questions) and join us for an enlightening talk by Ken Meter, one of the leading food systems analysts in the U.S. He has conducted economic analyses of food and farm economies in over 63 regions in 27 states. His recent analysis of Central Illinois for the Edible Economy Project (pdf) reveals that our current food and farm economy effectively exports large amounts of wealth away from the region, while our residents spend substantial amounts of money on food imported from elsewhere. He will briefly share his research results, highlighting why shifting to local foods matters to our community’s health and wealth.

This brown bag lunch talk is part of Illinois Wesleyan’s “What We Eat. Why It Matters” fall symposium.

For more information, contact Visiting Associate Professor of Health and Environmental Studies Laurine Brown lbrown@iwu.edu or Assistant Professor of Nursing Lisabeth lsearing@iwu.edu.