Nature’s Best Hope – Feb. 28 – WLS 2021

Recent headlines about global insect declines and three billion fewer birds in North America are a bleak reality check about how ineffective our current landscape designs have been at sustaining the plants and animals that sustain us. Such losses are not an option if we wish to continue our current standard of living on Planet Earth. The good news is that none of this is inevitable. Doug Tallamy, the author most recently of “Nature’s Best Hope,” a New York Times Best Seller, will discuss simple steps that each of us can—and must—take to reverse declining biodiversity, and will explain why we, ourselves, are nature’s best hope.

Doug Tallamy, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware. He has authored 104 research publications and taught insect-related courses for 40 years. Chief among his research goals is to better understand the many ways insects interact with plants, and how such interactions determine the diversity of animal communities. His book, “Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens” (Timber Press, 2007), was awarded the 2008 Silver Medal by the Garden Writers’ Association. He co-authored “The Living Landscape” (Timber Press, 2014) with Rick Darke. His new book, “Nature’s Best Hope” (Timber Press, 2020), was a New York Times Best Seller. His awards include the Garden Club of America Margaret Douglas Medal for Conservation, the Tom Dodd, Jr. Award of Excellence, the 2018 AHS B.Y. Morrison Communication Award and the 2019 Cynthia Westcott Scientific Writing Award.