Richard Louv is a journalist and author of seven books about the connections between family, nature and community. His most recent book, "Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder" (Algonquin), translated into 9 languages and published in 13 countries, has stimulated an international conversation about the relationship between children and nature. Louv is also the chairman and co-founder of the Children & Nature Network (www.childrenandnature.org), an organization helping build the movement to connect today’s children and future generations to the natural world. Louv coined the term Nature-Deficit Disorder® which has become the defining phrase of this important issue.

In 2008, he was awarded the Audubon Medal, presented by the National Audubon Society. Prior recipients have included Rachel Carson, E. O. Wilson and President Jimmy Carter. Louv is also the recipient of the Cox Award for 2007, Clemson University’s highest honor, for “sustained achievement in public service” and has been a Clemson visiting professor. Among other awards, Louv is the recipient of the 2008 San Diego Zoological Society Conservation Medal, the 2008 George B. Rabb Conservation Medal from the Chicago Zoological Society, and the 2009 International Making Cities Livable Jane Jacobs Award. He was recently named Honorary Co-chairman, with Canadian artist Robert Bateman, of Canada’s national Children and Nature Alliance.

Louv has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Times of London, and other major publications. He has appeared on many national TV shows, including NBC’s Today Show and Nightly News, CBS Evening News, ABC’s Good Morning America, and NPR's Morning Edition, Fresh Air, and Talk of the Nation. Between 1984 and 2007 he was a columnist for The San Diego Union-Tribune and has been a columnist and member of the editorial advisory board for Parents magazine. Louv served as an advisor both to the Ford Foundation’s Leadership for a Changing World award program and to the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child. He is on the board of directors of ecoAmerica and a member of the Citistates Group. He has appeared before the Domestic Policy Council in the White House as well as at major governmental and professional conferences, nationally and internationally. He is working on his eighth book, about the restorative power of nature.

He is married to Kathy Frederick Louv and the father of two young men, Jason, 28 and Matthew, 22. He would rather fish than write.

Mathis Wackernagel, Ph.D., is co-creator of the Ecological Footprint and President of Global Footprint Network, an international sustainability think-tank dedicated to bringing about a sustainable human economy in which all can live well, within the means of one planet. By promoting the use of the Ecological Footprint, Global Footprint Network is working to make ecological limits central to decision-making everywhere. Mathis has worked on sustainability on six continents and lectured at more than a hundred universities worldwide. Beginning in 2011, he will be the Frank H. T. Rhodes Class of 1956 Visiting Professor at Cornell University. His awards include an honorary doctorate from the University of Bern, a 2007 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, a 2006 WWF Award for Conservation Merit, and the 2005 Herman Daly Award of US Society for Ecological Economics.

Wayne Roberts manages the Toronto Food Policy Council (TFPC), a citizen body of 30 food activists and experts that is widely recognized for its innovative approach to food security.

As a leading member of the City of Toronto’s Environmental Task Force, he helped develop a number of official plans for the city, including the Environmental Plan and Food Charter, adopted by Toronto City Council in 2000 and 2001 respectively. Many ideas and projects of the TFPC are featured in Roberts’ book The No-Nonsense Guide to World Food (2008).
Since 1989, Roberts has written a weekly column for Toronto’s NOW Magazine, generally on themes that link social justice, public health and green economics.

In 2002, he received the Canadian Environment Award for his contributions to sustainable living. NOW Magazine named Roberts one of Toronto’s leading visionaries of the past 20 years. In 2008, he received the Canadian Eco-Hero Award presented by Planet in Focus.

Roberts earned a Ph.D. in social and economic history from the University of Toronto in 1978, and has written seven books, including Get A Life! (1995), a manual on green economics, and Real Food For A Change (1999), which promotes a food system based on the four ingredients of health, joy, justice and nature.

Roberts chaired the influential and Toronto-based Coalition for a Green Economy for 15 years. He has also served on the Board of the U.S.-based Community Food Security Coalition and Food Secure Canada. He is on the board of Green Enterprise Toronto, an organization of local eco-businesses that’s associated with the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies across North America. He has been invited to speak around the world on strategies that combine food security, community empowerment, environmental improvement, social equity and job creation.

Prior to his involvement with environmental issues, Roberts worked for two decades in the fields of community organizing, university teaching, media, labour education, industrial relations and union administration. During this time he chaired the Charles Street Tenants’ Association during the longest and biggest rent strike in Canadian history, serving as the senior negotiator in talks with the Ontario Housing Corporation. During this period Roberts wrote a number of books, including Cracking The Canadian Formula (1992) on the Energy and Chemical Workers Union, Don’t Call Me Servant (1993) on the Ontario civil service and Ontario Public Service Employees Union, and Giving Away a Miracle (1992) on Bob Rae’s New Democratic Party (NDP) government in Ontario.

Dr. Bill Dennison is a Professor of Marine Science and Vice President for Science Applications at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES). Dr. Dennison’s primary mission within UMCES is to coordinate the Integration and Application Network. The University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science is one of two research and service institutions in the 13-institution University System of Maryland. UMCES is comprised of three laboratories distributed across the watershed of Chesapeake Bay within Maryland: Appalachian Laboratory in Frostburg, Chesapeake Biological Laboratory on the western shore of Chesapeake Bay in Solomons and Horn Point Laboratory on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay near Cambridge as well as Maryland Sea Grant College in College Park, Maryland. UMCES also operates an Annapolis Liaison Office.

Bill Dennison rejoined UMCES in 2002 following a ten year stint at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. He originally started at UMCES (then the Center for Environmental and Estuarine Science) in 1987 as a Postdoctorate/Research Assistant Professor based at Horn Point Laboratory. In Australia, Bill developed an active Marine Botany group at the University of Queensland with strong links to the Healthy Waterways Campaign for Moreton Bay. Bill obtained his academic training from Western Michigan University (B.A., Biology & Environmental Science), the University of Alaska (M.S., Biological Oceanography), The University of Chicago (Ph.D., Biology), and State University of New York at Stony Brook at Stony Brook (Postdoc, Coastal Marine Scholar).

Gord Miller is the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, the province’s independent environmental watchdog. Appointed by the Legislative Assembly, the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario is tasked under the Environmental Bill of Rights with publicly reporting on the government’s environmental decision-making.