Peter Kareiva, chief scientist of The Nature Conservancy extols the controversial concept of collaboration with big corporations and agribusiness to promote environmental sustainability and habitat restoration. (Photo by The Nature Conservancy)

A scientist who extols the controversial concept of collaboration with big corporations and agribusiness to promote environmental sustainability and habitat restoration will be the speaker at this year’s Jane and Whitney Harris Lecture. The event will begin at 7:30 p.m. on April 3 in the Ridgeway Center’s Schoenberg Auditorium at the Missouri Botanical Garden, 4344 Shaw Boulevard, St. Louis. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Peter Kareiva, chief scientist of The Nature Conservancy and co-author of the textbook “Conservation Science: Balancing the Needs of People and Nature,” will present “Towards a new conservation: Strange bedfellows, broadening the constituency, and rejecting false metaphors.”

Kareiva joined The Nature Conservancy in 2002 after more than 20 years in academics and works at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In addition to his duties as the conservancy’s chief scientist, his current projects emphasize the interplay of human land use and biodiversity, resilience in the face of global change, and marine conservation. Kareiva has authored more than 100 scientific articles.

Last year, Kareiva was named a member of the National Academy of Sciences for his excellence in original scientific research. He received a master’s of science degree in environmental biology from the University of California, Irvine, and his PhD in ecology and evolutionary biology from Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

The lecture is co-sponsored the by the Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center at UMSL, University of Missouri–St. Louis, Missouri Botanical Garden and the Saint Louis Zoo. Call 314-516-5219 for more information.