Global food security to be topic of ES guest speaker
"Who owns what you eat: Why the use and control of biological diversity matters to global food security" will be the topic of guest speaker Susan Bragdon when she lectures at 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 12, at Skidmore.
Free and open to all, the lecture will be in Emerson Auditorium, Palamountain Hall. Skidmore's Environmental Studies Program is sponsoring the event.
A patent attorney and consultant, Bragdon has more than 20 years of experience working with governments, public (intergovernmental and non-governmental) institutions, private enterprise and donor organizations in the field of sustainable development and poverty alleviation. Her specialties include international legal regimes related to sustainability, plant genetic resources law, and sustainable agriculture.
She is an expert on public international law, agriculture, biodiversity conservation and use, biotechnology, and public-private partnerships. She served as legal advisor (the top legal post) to two major global treaties addressing sustainable development and poverty alleviation – the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Waste.
Last April Bragdon became executive director of Seeds for All, based in Portland, Ore., and Berne, Switzerland. The organization supports more inclusive intellectual property rights policy development in the area of agricultural innovation to strengthen food security and alleviate poverty. She also is a principal with SHB Consulting, advising on poverty issues, conservation and the use of biological diversity, international and national law.
She previously worked as a senior programme officer and legal advisor with the United Nations Environmental Programme, as a senior program officer with Biodiversity International, and as director of the Oregon Sustainability Experience.
Bragdon is a graduate of Williams College, the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources, and the University of Michigan Law School.
