News from SUNY Cortland

For more information contact: Jennifer Wilson, 607-753-2232

Bruce Barcott To Give Keynote Speech At Earth Week Conference At SUNY Cortland

Author's Talk And Concert To Focus On Environment

CORTLAND, NY (04/16/2008; 1144)(readMedia)-- Author Bruce Barcott will discuss his new book documenting the effort by Sharon Matola, environmental activist and Belize Zoo director, to prevent the building of a dam in the rainforest, on Saturday, April 26, at SUNY Cortland.

Barcott, who wrote Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw: One Woman’s Fight to Save the World’s Most Beautiful Bird, is the featured speaker for the College’s Earth Week Environmental Conference from noon-7 p.m. that day in Old Main.

He will begin his talk at 6 p.m. in the courtyard in front of Old Main, immediately following a benefit concert by the SUNY Cortland Rock and Blues Ensemble.

The concert will begin at 4 p.m. Under the direction of Steven Barnes, an Africana Studies Department faculty member, the performance will celebrate the release of the compact disc “The Belize Zoo Project,” recorded by the ensemble to benefit the Belize Zoo. In the event of inclement weather, both events will move into Old Main Brown Auditorium.

Presented by The Belize Project at SUNY Cortland, Barcott’s talk and the concert are both free and open to the public. Copies of the book, published by Random House, will be for sale at the conference and Barcott will be available to sign them after his presentation. The CD also will be available for sale with all proceeds supporting SUNY Cortland's Belize Zoo Project and the Belize Zoo.

Over the past two decades, Sharon Matola and the Belize Zoo have become world famous, in particular for their focus on the restoration of the Harpy eagle species, the Central American macaw and jaguar habitat restoration.

“You may think you’ve heard this tale before: the tree/bird/fish huggers against the land-raping multi-nationals,” writes Elizabeth Royte about Barcott’s book in the Feb. 18 edition of The New York Times Book Review. “But few parts of Barcott’s story are what they appear: what’s local is global, insiders are outsiders (and vice versa) and scientists transform themselves, with the signing of nondisclosure agreements, into “bio-institutes” for hire. Matola herself is a complicated hero — ‘strange and sometimes aggravating.’”

Barcott is also the author of The Measure of a Mountain: Beauty and Terror on Mount Ranier. He is a contributing editor at Outside magazine. His featured articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Mother Jones, Sports Illustrated, Harper’s and Utne Reader. He contributes to The New York Times Book Review and the public radio show “Living on Earth” and is a former Ted Scripps Fellow at the University of Colorado.

In mid-November the subject of Barcott’s book, Sharon Matola, visited the SUNY Cortland campus and gave the keynote lecture at the College’s International Education Week. After her talk, she performed a song dedicated to Wildboy, a jaguar at the zoo, with the SUNY Cortland Rock and Blues Ensemble during a benefit concert that raised more than $600 for the facility. One of the premier conservation organizations operating in Belize, the zoo receives no government funding and relies solely on memberships and donations.

The CD that was inspired by the concert includes nine tracks donated by local musicians, including collaborations with musical members of the SUNY Cortland campus community.

“The CD features two songs recorded by the students in the SUNY Cortland Rock and Blues Ensemble,” said Thomas Pasquarello, a SUNY Cortland professor of political science and campus liaison to the Belize Zoo. “One is ‘Wildboy,’ a song about the star of the Belize Zoo’s jaguar rehab program, written by me. The other is “Goin’ to the Belize Zoo,” written by Barnes.”

The recording includes the following tracks donated by local musicians: “Can't Change an Eagle,” by Bounty, featuring SUNY Cortland electrician Jim Van Deuson and Barnes; “Belize Zoo Shuffle,” by the Wee Little Men, featuring SUNY Cortland Africana studies lecturer Richard Harris; “Make it Now,” by William Latimer, brother of SUNY Cortland Assistant Professor of Political Science Christopher Latimer; “Cat’s Reply,” by SUNY Cortland Assistant Professor of International Communications and Culture Colleen Kattau; “See You in the Bar,” by Tom Fury; “Rather be Fishin’,” by Travis Bailey; “The End of the Fight,” by Urban Horse Thieves and featuring Joseph Rayle, associate professor of foundations and social advocacy; “Where I Belong,” by Ten Man Push; and “Open Road,” by Calico Moon and featuring SUNY Cortland Supervising Janitor Mark Taylor.

For more information on the lecture or concert, contact Pasquarello at (607) 753-5772. For more information on the Earth Week Environmental Conference, organized by Cortland Students Advocating for a Valuable Environment (C-SAVE), contact csave10@yahoo.

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