Retired aquatic ecologist Joseph Furnish, PhD., will discuss the geologic history of life and biodiversity on earth to explain how we got here.

The story of the origin and evolution of life on earth is remarkable for its richness and tumultuous history. Since active, multicellular life first appeared and flourished about 550 million years ago, earth has experienced five major species extinctions. Now we are facing another major extinction event. The challenges and current methods of conserving biodiversity, and examples of successful ecosystem restoration at international, national and local levels will be presented.