None The Nature Conservancy in Washington Press Releases Search All Press Releases Leslie Brown, The Nature Conservancy, leslie_brown@tnc.org

Gordon Orians elected to Nature Conservancy board of trustees

Seattle, Washington — January 26, 2006 —  Dr. Gordon Orians, renowned behavioral ecologist and professor emeritus of biology at the University of Washington, was elected to the board of trustees for the Washington chapter of the Nature Conservancy, the organization announced Thursday.

A long time leader in the environmental sciences, Orians, who has been inducted into both the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, served 10 years as the director of the UW Institute for Environmental Studies. During his 35 years as a UW professor of zoology, Orians conducted extensive research into the complex and often delicate relationships that exist between ecology and animal social organization and behavior. His research has shed much light on habitat selection, mate selection and mating systems, selection of prey and foraging patches, and plant-herbivore interactions.

Collaborating with psychologists, geographers, planners, and landscape painters, Orians has worked to make the discoveries of the laboratory known and accessible to the public. Orians, in his work with the National Academy of Sciences, published many important articles highlighting the interface between science and policy, such as his article on the cumulative effects of environmental oil and gas extraction in Alaska.

The Washington chapter looks forward to the presence of Dr. Gordon Orians on the board of trustees, confident that he, with his extensive scientific background, will help guide the organization in their shared commitment to preserving the great places of this state.

About the Conservancy

Over the past 40 years, the Conservancy has collaborated to conserve more than 500,000 acres of irreplaceable natural lands in Washington state, including 50,000 acres owned by the organization. With the completion of a new five-year plan, the Conservancy is poised to take that work to a new level, working with communities and civic leaders around the state to protect and restore tens of thousands of additional acres and the waters that tie them together.

The Conservancy is currently working actively to protect the Skagit River and the forested basin that surrounds it, the coastal rainforests of the Willapa Hills, the imperiled prairies of the South Puget Sound region, and several other signature landscapes. It uses scientific discipline and thoughtful planning to set conservation priorities, then works collaboratively with a wide range of people to bring these priorities to fruition.

The Conservancy has chapters in all 50 states and works around the world. To date, the Conservancy and its nearly one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 12 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 80 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific.

On the Web at nature.org/washington.