Milkweed to Meadowlarks

How Private Land Stewards can Lead the Way in Biodiversity Conservation
by Charlotte Lorick, Virginia Working Landscapes

The talk will include an overview of relevant Virginia Working Landscape research findings, highlight best management practices to support wildlife and biodiversity, and discuss how we can think of our backyards and managed spaces as habitats and ecosystems, no matter the size.  

Speaker bio – As Program Coordinator of Virginia Working Landscapes, Charlotte leads the outreach and community engagement programs along with various research projects. She serves as a key liaison with VWL’s dynamic network of citizen scientists, landowners, collaborating organizations, and the public. Her outreach goals are to promote VWL’s program mission on multiple platforms, diversify the program’s audiences, and share the progress and results of VWL’s research with a wide community to inspire conservation action. Her research interests focus on the impacts of management on plant communities and plant-species interactions.

Charlotte earned her undergraduate degree at Barnard College of Columbia University in New York with a focus in political economics and sustainable agriculture. Her interests in agriculture, botany, and relationship-building led her to the Smithsonian where she enjoys connecting the scientific community with the general public and leading plant surveys for several VWL projects. She is an outdoor enthusiast and naturalist, and her long-term interest has been in understanding how humans interact with the natural world and how to promote sustainable, regenerative interactions, particularly on working lands. 

See more about Charlotte at the Virginia Working Landscapes site.