April 13 free program features Dr. Benjamin Beck of Great Ape Trust
A public lecture on April 13 will give attendees a better understanding of how a “Forest of Hope” is protecting rare primate species in the African jungles. Kirkwood Community College will present its 38th Mel Oliven Lecture in Ballantyne Auditorium on the Cedar Rapids main campus.
The 11 a.m. program features Dr. Benjamin Beck, Director of Conservation at the Great Ape Trust in Des Moines. The program is free and open to the public. Beck will discuss conservation and protection efforts in the east central African nation of Rwanda.
Dr. Beck was formerly the associate director at the Smithsonian National Zoo in Washington, DC and has devoted more than 20 years of work in reintroducing golden lion tamarins, an indigenous primate of Brazil.
In his work with the Great Ape Trust, Beck is the project’s chief spokesperson to the national and international conservation community and advises several ape reintroduction programs. He is a comparative psychologist by training and collaborates with other Great Ape Trust scientists in ongoing ape cognition research.
Beck is the author of 45 scientific papers and books, and has given well over 100 presentations at scientific conferences, colleges and universities. His work with reintroduction of the golden lion tamarin species in Brazil has resulted in a population increase from 153 in the early 1980s to nearly 600 animals today, one third of the entire wild population.
The Mel Oliven Lecture series is presented to educate Kirkwood students and the public on scientific and environmental issues. The series is named for Oliven, an early science instructor at Kirkwood who passed away in 1975. An endowment from the Oliven family is held by the Kirkwood Foundation and makes regular public program speakers possible. The April 13 program is presented in cooperation with Kirkwood’s Math/Science and Student Life departments.