Dave Foreman Deep Ecology Collaboratory Presenter
Dave Foreman (center) with Ecologistics’ Board Members Michael Jencks, Stacey Hunt, and Ted Hamilton (left to right) at Wild Legacy Salute to Doug Tompkins January 31, 2016
While attending the Douglas Tompkins memorial “Wild Legacy” in San Francisco last January, my colleagues Stacey Hunt, Michael Jencks, and I had the opportunity to speak with Dave Foreman and invite him to the Deep Ecology conference that we were planning. We took the opportunity to praise his latest book Man Swarm: How Overpopulation is Killing the Wild World, and talked of how Ecologistics had recently sponsored a showing of the film Wrenched- a tribute to Ed Abbey that Dave had a part in. We sipped wine together and took in the bittersweet atmosphere, surrounded by our wilderness-loving compatriots. It was a day that would remain in our hearts for a long time.
Dave Foreman was named by Audubon magazine as one of the hundred Champions of Conservation of the Twentieth Century. He also co-founded Earth First! and has spearheaded a host of conservation organizations like: Wild Earth, The Wildlands Project, and The Rewilding Institute. Dave’s work has been focused on “developing and promoting the ideas, strategies, and vision of continental-scale conservation.”
For over a quarter century he has written a column called “Around the Campfire”, which has been an inspiration for many conservation activists in North America and beyond. One of these “Around the Campfire” essays (The Anthropocene and Ozymandias) is a critique of the anthropocentric ideas embodied in the so-called ‘New Conservation’ movement. Dave’s fireside talk on the first evening of the Ecologistics Deep Ecology Collaboratory will expand on a non-anthropocentric vision of where conservation needs to go.
Dave Foreman is the author of many books, including: Confessions of an Eco-Warrior, Rewilding of North America: A Vision of Conservation in the 21st Century, Man Swarm: How Overpopulation is Killing the Wild World, Take Back Conservation, and The Great Conservation Divide: Conservation vs Resourcism on America’s Public Lands.
