Sidore Lecture: Len Reitsma

The 2022-2023 Sidore Lecture Series focuses on Building Justice in our communities and our world, today and beyond. What is social justice? What would that look like? Who benefits from social justice and who benefits from resisting it?

Lectures will explore the broad spectrum of justice issues facing us today and how we can modify society towards a more “just” future. Topics may include (but are not limited to): voting rights, racial justice, criminal justice/ juvenile justice, environmental justice, immigration, reproductive justice, economic justice, health and disability justice, and access to basic needs.

Are humans destined to commit ecocide?
Can humans apply justice to non-human species and their ecosystems? The dominant world view places humans above all other species and has considered the ecosystems they depend upon as natural resources for human exploitation. Our rapid population growth combined with overconsumption is driving a sixth mass extinction. Ecocide, an emerging concept defined as ecosystem or ecological destruction mostly through human activity, is being proposed as an international crime. Increasing calls for sustainable consumption and resource use/extraction indicate a growing awareness of our eco-destructive behavior. But there is a big divide between this growing awareness and the actions and policies of governments and corporations. What levers will facilitate transformation to ecologically aware, sustainable resource use?

Dr. Reitsma, Professor Emeritus, grew up in Northern NJ 20 miles west of the George Washington Bridge. With a growing realization that birds and other non-human species were in serious peril, he got his Ph.D. at Dartmouth in 1990. His focus was bird ecology in the tropics and in NH. As a professor at Plymouth State, Len received two of the highest honors: the Distinguished Teaching Award as well as the Distinguished Scholar Award. His passion at PSU was teaching and maintaining a bird research program that he sustains to the present. Much of Len’s research has been driven by declines in the populations of the species he has studied. He and his wife garden, heat their home mostly with renewable energy, drive an electric and hybrid vehicle and spend most days in nature on their 115-acre American Tree Farm.