A leading voice for science-based policy reform in support of a healthy global ocean continues the University of Hawaii at Hilo Rose and Raymond Tseng Distinguished Lecture Series at 7 p.m. Monday in the Performing Arts Center.
Doors open at 6:30 p.m. The public is invited to attend.
Julie Packard, the founding executive director of the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, presents “Charting a Course for the Future of the Ocean.” A Q&A session will follow her presentation.
Under Packard’s leadership, the aquarium has pioneered innovative exhibits and education initiatives, and engaged on ocean issues ranging from sustainable global fisheries and aquaculture to plastic pollution, climate change, and science-based conservation of marine wildlife and ecosystems, including sea otters, sharks and bluefin tuna.
She is a trustee of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and chairs the board of the independent Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, a leader in deep ocean science and technology.
A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Packard has received the Audubon Medal for Conservation, the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the California Coastal Commission’s Coastal Hero award. She is featured in the National Portrait Gallery.
Packard serves on the Joint Oceans Commission Initiative, working to implement comprehensive reform of U.S. ocean policy. She has addressed ocean issues at international conferences, including the World Trade Organization and Global Climate Action Summit.
“This is a momentous time in the life of our planet,” Packard said in a press release. “The fate and future of eight billion people hinge on decisions we make in the next few years. For most of human history, we’ve acted like the ocean has endless capacity to feed us and be our dumping ground. Now we know that’s a dangerous assumption. We need to act as if our lives depended on the health of the ocean. Because they do.”
Packard earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, with a focus on marine algae.
The UH-Hilo Rose and Raymond Tseng Distinguished Lecture is an initiative supported by an endowed fund started by UH-Hilo Chancellor Emerita Rose Tseng.