LA Bioneers Meeting with Marcus Eriksen & Anna Cummins
Please join Barbara Bosson and Sara Nichols for the May 31, 2011, gathering of Los Angeles Bioneers, people dedicated to re-imagining the future of our planet. Bioneers are biological pioneers who are working with nature to heal nature and ourselves.
Our guest speakers this month are Marcus Eriksen and Anna Cummins, partners in life and work, who recently co-founded “5 Gyres Institute”, in collaboration with Algalita and Pangaea Explorations, to research and communicate plastic pollution in the worlds oceans.
Marcus, who received his Ph.D. in Science Education from University of Southern California in 2003, months before embarking on a 2000-mile journey down the Mississippi River on a raft made from plastic bottles, has a long and compelling biography, most of which you’ll find out on May 31!
He is the Director of Project Development for the Algalita Marine Research Foundation (www.algalita.org), studying and lecturing about the plague of plastic debris in the world’s oceans. In 2006, he won the H. David Nahai Water Quality Award in Education, presented by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board for his conservation work with inner-city students.
In 2008, Marcus rafted across the Pacific Ocean from California to Hawaii on JUNK, a raft floating on 15,000 plastic bottles, 30 sailboat masts lashed to form a deck, and a Cessna airplane fuselage as a cabin (junkraft.com). The journey, 2,600 miles in 88 days, brought attention to the issue of plastic trash filling the world’s oceans and solutions. JUNKraft was followed by a 2000-mile cycling/speaking tour from Vancouver, Canada to Tijuana, Mexico with his wife, Anna.
Anna has over 12 years of experience in environmental non-profit work, education, writing, and campaign development. She has worked in marine conservation, coastal watershed management, sustainabilty education, and high school ecology instruction. Anna received her undergraduate in History from Stanford University, and her Masters in International Environmental Policy from the Monterey Institute for International Studies.
In 2001, Anna received a fellowship from the Sustainable Communities Leadership Program, to work with Santa Cruz based non-profit Save Our Shores, coordinating bilingual outreach education and community relations. In 2007 Anna joined the Algalita Marine Research Foundation as education adviser, conducting school outreach and giving public presentations on plastic marine pollution. With Algalita, Anna completed a month long, 4,000-mile research expedition studying plastic debris in the North Pacific Gyre. Anna and Marcus were elected National Fellows of the Explorers Club in 2010, and Anna, the Wings World Quests’ Ocean Fellow in 2011.
The evening starts at 7:00 pm on Tuesday, May 31, at our wonderful still-feels-new venue, the G2 Gallery at 1503 Abbot Kinney Bl. in Venice. This beautiful space houses some of the most stunning nature photography you will ever see. There is both street parking and parking behind the building. Car pool if you can! Or ride a bike!
We are abandoning the potluck “dinner” as it continually ended up not being zero waste and we were left to do the cleaning up. Please try to arrive as close to 7 as possible so we can meet and mingle then get the program underway by 7:30.
RSVP to Sara at [email protected] if you are able to come. For more information about Bioneers, see www.bioneers.org.
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