Vanishing Biodiversity And Untapped Potential Of Our Natural Resources

You Can Join Live
https://www.facebook.com/aspaslausa/
Vanishing Biodiversity and Untapped Potential of our Natural Resources
The biggest issues facing the global community today are closely tied to the loss of biodiversity. Biodiversity is the ecological life support providing oxygen, clean air and water, pollination of plants, pest control, wastewater treatment and many other ecosystem services. During this WEBINAR, our experts will explain these issues and show us why every one of us should work together to halt the biodiversity crisis.
This is the Fourteenth of a series of WEBINARs hosted by the America Sri Lanka Photographic Art Society (ASPAS) in Los Angeles, California USA, a member of the Photographic Society of America (PSA), and International Federation of Photography Art (FIAP) based in France. The objective of the series is to promote environmental conservation in the context of nature photography and eco-tourism
www.usacaaspas.com
Date: Saturday, October 03rd 2020
Time: 7.30am to 8.30am UK 3.30pm Local Time in Los Angeles
8pm to 9pm Local Time in Sri Lanka

Panelists:
Dr Sevvandi Jayakody PhD
Dr Gothamie Weerakoon

Dr Sevvandi Jayakody PhD
Assistant Director, Department of Wildlife Conservation since 1997 and lecturer, Wayamba University.
BSc (Hons.) in Zoology, University of Kelaniya, Post Graduate Diploma in Wildlife Management and Conservation from the Wildlife Institute of India. PhD in Zoology, University of Aberdeen, U.K. Post-doctoral research at SCIRO, Australia, James Hutton Institute, Scotland and IDRC, Canada.
She is Coordinator for CITES CoP18, Chairperson of National Mangrove Expert Committee, Member of the Commonwealth Blue Carbon Initiative, a Member of the National Environmental Council and a Director of Environmental Foundation Limited. Research interests include coastal ecosystem management, policy and impacts of human disturbance on ecosystem processes and functions.

Dr Gothamie Weerakoon
Senior Curator of Lichens and Slime Moulds, Algae, Fungi and Plants Division, Department of Life Sciences, The Natural History Museum, London, U.K.
As the Senior Curator of British General and Historical Herbaria is to manage and develop one of the world’s largest lichen collections, lichenicolous fungi and slime moulds with 450,000 specimens and making the collections available for both scientific and historical research. She carried out extensive field work in South and South East Asia observing lichens in their native habitats and identified more than 75 new lichen species, mostly in Graphidaceae from the Old-World tropics.
Her research interests are focused on the taxonomy and ecology of tropical lichens, bioindication and conservation of lichenised fungi in endangered habitats.