Ecological Economics is Topic for Pesek Colloquium Sept. 11

AMES, Iowa — The eighth John Pesek Colloquium on Sustainable Agriculture, which honors a retired Iowa State University agronomy professor, will be Sept. 11. Robert Costanza, the Gund Professor of Ecological Economics and director of the Gund Institute for Ecological Economics at the University of Vermont, will be the featured speaker. The lecture will begin at 7 p.m. in the Great Hall of the Iowa State University Memorial Union, with a reception to follow. The event is free and open to the public. Costanza is co-founder and past-president of the International Society for Ecological Economics. His research focuses on the interface between ecological and economic systems. The title of his Sept. 11 lecture is "Ecological Economics: Creating a Sustainable and Desirable Future." Prior to moving to Vermont in August 2002, he was director of the University of Maryland Institute for Ecological Economics. Costanza received his doctorate from the University of Florida in 1979 in systems ecology, with a minor in economics. He also has a master's degree in architecture and urban and regional planning from the University of Florida. He is the author or co-author of 300 scientific papers and his work has been cited in more than 3,000 scientific articles since 1987. The Pesek Colloquium on Sustainable Agriculture is sponsored by the Henry A. Wallace Chair for Sustainable Agriculture. The colloquium is co-sponsored by the Iowa Farm Bureau, Alliant Energy and Iowa Farmers Union, plus the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Department of Agronomy, Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management, Plant Sciences Institute, College of Engineering, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Bioethics Program and Committee on Lectures, all at Iowa State. The event is named for John Pesek, an Iowa State emeritus professor of agronomy, whose work in soil fertility, crop production and the economics of soil fertilizer use led scientists to a better understanding of the effects of management practices on the environment.