Tonight’s keynote presentation features the video, “Nature’s Best Hope”, a recording made at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies with renowned entomologist, ecologist, and best-selling author Doug Tallamy. In it, he discusses how we can create home landscapes that enhance local ecosystems, rather than degrade them – to serve as sustaining refuges for native plants and animals.

Tallamy’s first book, Bringing Nature Home, awakened many to how, “everyone with access to a patch of Earth can make a significant contribution toward sustaining biodiversity by simply choosing native plants.” Nature’s Best Hope is the next book and step in his vision for grassroots conservation. In it, Tallamy provides practical, effective, and achievable suggestions for how yards can be transformed into conservation corridors. Through individual action, he urges us to become part of the solution by shrinking lawns, planting natives, restoring beneficial insects, and creating connectivity.