Wetland researcher to speak about financing Gulf restoration efforts

Lecture is part of FGCU’s ‘Moonlight on the Marsh’ Lecture Series

FORT MYERS – A leading expert in wetland science and engineering will discuss how wetland creation and restoration practices in the Midwest can help protect the Gulf of Mexico in a public lecture at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 21 at Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, 3333 Sanibel-Captiva Road, Sanibel.

Donald L. Hey, Ph.D., whose work spans more than 40 years of research and application in ecological flood control and wetland science and engineering, will speak as part of the free “Moonlight on the Marsh” lecture series sponsored by Florida Gulf Coast University's Everglades Wetland Research Park in Naples. It’s the final lecture in a series featuring distinguished scientists from around the world sharing their expertise on renewable energy, nature conservation and other environmental topics.

Hey’s presentation, “Nutrient Farming in the American Midwest to Protect the Gulf of Mexico,” will explore the value of wetlands in environmental and economic terms as well as innovative ways to finance large-scale wetland restoration – topics of vital regional concern with regard to the Florida Everglades.

S ince 1983, Hey has served as executive director of Wetlands Research Inc., a nonprofit corporation in Chicago that he co-founded to study wetland functions, design and operation. The organization specializes in researching the design and operation of restored wetlands. He also is the cofounder and former president of the nonprofit Wetlands Initiative, which specializes in the restoration of large-scale wetlands.