Why Forests Are So Important

Panel Talk | Tuesday, April 26 | 6.30pm

With JOE BAKER, member of the Delaware Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma and and co-founder executive director of Lenape Center in Manhattan, CHARLES McNEILL, Senior Advisor, Forests & Climate at UN Environment Programme (UNEP), PASCALE D'ERM, author and director of Natura, and MARY BETH GALLAGHER, Director of Engagement at Domini.

In this panel, we will underline the role of forests and trees in our survival by listening to different voices. Trees surround us and we take them for granted when really they are of utmost importance and in danger. We will not solve the problems of deforestation during this panel but raise our awareness on this issue. Our guests will emphasize the reasons why trees are vital from a physical, ecological, and economic point of view, and the importance of preserving them.

In English

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About our guest speakers...
 
  • JOE BAKER is an artist, educator, curator and activist who has been working in the field of Native Arts for the past thirty years. He is an enrolled member of the Delaware Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma and co-founder executive director of Lenape Center in Manhattan. Baker is an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of Social Work in New York and was recently Visiting Professor of Museum Studies at Colorado College, Colorado Springs, Colorado. He serves as a board member for The Endangered Language Fund, Yale University and on the Advisory Committee for the National Public Art Consortium, New York and cultural advisor for the new CBS Series, “Ghosts.”
 
  • CHARLES McNEILL has been a leader in the United Nations' work on sound environmental management for sustainable development in the developing world for 25 years. Previous to his current position with UNEP, he managed UNDP's programs on forests, biodiversity & ecosystems, climate change mitigation and adaptation, sustainable energy, stakeholder engagement, the MDGs, SDGs and public-private partnerships. Throughout his career, he has devoted special attention to engaging with and empowering Indigenous Peoples (IPs) and local communities.
 
  • PASCALE D'ERM. Since more than 25 years, she has explored nature and ecological issues alongside organizations and media, such as Yann Arthus Bertrand's Goodplanète, France 3 Ouest, Ushuaïa TV, Canal +/Planète+, or the former France 5 channel. As a journalist, she has published in various magazines and also published several books on eco-citizenship at Glénat. Recently, Pascale wrote and directed "NATURA" and “AQUA”, (2018, 2021, 52' documentaries, with the participation of Canal+), international survey on the benefits of nature’s experience on physical, emotional, psychological and cognitive health. In January 2019, she was knighted Chevalière de l’Ordre de la Légion d’Honneur.

  • MARY BETH GALLAGHER is the Director of Engagement at Domini Impact Investments LLC. Ms. Gallagher, an attorney and former Executive Director of a non-profit organization representing institutional investors, has been advancing social justice and human rights issues for most of her professional career. Domini’s forest project is committed to understanding the drivers of forest destruction, biodiversity loss, and the impacts on the rights of Indigenous peoples, and addressing this through our investment decisions, and engagement efforts, to further forest value creators.
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