Ideas, Speakers & Lectures

Wilderness Workshop

Wilderness Workshop’s mission is to protect the wilderness, water, and wildlife of western Colorado’s public lands. The organization works across more than four million acres of public lands to ensure their ecological integrity. They have led efforts to designate more than half a million acres of Wilderness and hundreds of thousands of roadless areas in western Colorado. Their efforts focus on protecting public lands from threats such as industrial development, climate change, and short-term exploitation, but perhaps more important is what they protect public lands for – intact and thriving ecosystems, a livable planet for current and future generations, and the moment of awe that can only be experienced in a wild place. Learn more at wildernessworkshop.org.

Naturalist Nights: Ancient Wetlands in a Warming World

Aspen Public Radio

Published March 9, 2023 at 2:52 PM MST

This event was recorded on March 8, 2023 at Third Street Center, as part of the 2023 Winter Naturalist Nights Series, in partnership with Aspen Public Radio.

Nearly one-third of all the wetland area on Earth are peatlands, about ~2 % of Earth’s land area, with 20-25% of all terrestrial carbon stored in peatlands, making them the most effective carbon store on earth and providing important regulation of global carbon budgets. Mountain peatlands – fens, regulate movement of sediment, nutrients and water in watersheds and support a high proportion of regional biodiversity. Protecting fen integrity is an important component of mitigating impacts of climate warming in the arid west. Yet, fens are threatened by water development projects, recreation, and more. Ensuring protection of these irreplaceable wetlands is critical.

Each winter, Wilderness Workshop, the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies (ACES), and Roaring Fork Audubon partner to co-host the popular Naturalist Nights speaker series; nature specialists from around the country were invited to talk about their studies for a special opportunity to inform the public on the nature around us, and give insight into the science that can potentially affect the way that we interact with our environment.

About the Speaker

Delia Malone is an ecologist at the Colorado Natural Heritage Program. As a field ecologist with CNHP, she conducts biological surveys of upland, wetland and stream habitats and biological surveys for rare plants and animals across Colorado with the goal of conservation. Delia is also Wildlife Chair for the Colorado Chapter of the Sierra Club, vice-chair of Roaring Fork Audubon and is a passionate advocate for the preservation of all things wild.