AIMS 8th Annual Conference

Keynote Speakers

Guy Dauncey

Guy Dauncey is a speaker, author, and organizer who works to develop a positive vision of a sustainable future, and to translate that vision into action. He is co-author of the new book Cancer: 101 Solutions to a Preventable Epidemic, and is Co-chair of Prevent Cancer Now, a national non-profit society that is working to build a nation-wide movement to eliminate the preventable causes of cancer. He is also President of the BC Sustainable Energy Association (www.bcsea.org), Executive Director of The Solutions Project, and Publisher of EcoNews, a monthly newsletter that promotes the vision of a sustainable Vancouver Island. His home page is www.earthfuture.com.

Dr. Warren Bell, MD

Born and raised in Vancouver, B.C., Warren Bell has been a family physician for 31 years, having graduated from McGill University in 1974, and completed a residency there in 1976. For two decades he has been concerned about and involved in issues of social development and the environment, as well as the peace and anti-nuclear movement, global health and development (with an emphasis on the role of multinationals -- especially drug companies -- and patents), and the integration of healing modalities of all kinds. He has written and spoken in many settings on these and related issues, and participated in a number of projects both locally and nationally. For ten years he wrote a weekly newspaper column entitled "Global Health". He is past president of Physicians for Global Survival, a national Canadian Organization, and past founding president of Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. He is current president of the Association of Complementary and Integrative Physicians of B.C. He lives in a small town in south-central B.C. (Salmon Arm) running an active practice which integrates conventional and alternative or complementary remedies. He is current president of the medical staff of the Shuswap Lake General Hospital.

Herb Barbolet

Herb's education includes a BA in Urbanism, a Masters Degree and Doctoral Studies in Community Development and Doctoral Studies in Political Economy and Community Planning. Having worked in Community Development for 30 years, Herb farmed for 10 years and was the founding member of numerous limited companies, cooperatives, and non-profits, including FarmFolk/CityFolk. Herb is a monthly participant on CBC Almanac's Food Panel and appears regularly in all media. Herb is co-author of FarmFolk/CityFolk, the book, and is currently working on his second book. Many folks consider Herb Barbolet to be a leader of the sustainable food movement in Canada. Herb still acts as a consultant to FarmFolk/CityFolk while he is pursuing a career as a food consultant.

Eleanor Boyle

Eleanor Boyle is an educator, researcher, and writer concentrating on food choices and sustainable agriculture. She holds a B.A. in Psychology and a PhD in Neuroscience, and teaches at Capilano College. Currently working on another graduate degree in Food Policy, Eleanor is focussing on environmental and other effects of industrial meat production. She believes that climate-change discourse must be expanded to include the effects of food choices on the planet. An experienced and engaging speaker, she has co-written on book on effective university teaching.

Breakout Speakers

Josh Brandon

Josh Brandon is an agriculture campaigner with Greenpeace Canada. He is a member of Society for a GE Free BC, a province-wide coalition fighting against genetically engineered foods and crops, and sits on the National Council for the Canadian Environmental Network. Josh Brandon is the author of a recent report Toxic Corn: Summary of New Scientific Evidence on the Health Dangers of Genetically Engineered Food.

Tricia Sedgwick

Tricia Sedgwick is a Registered Holistic Nutritionist (Canadian School of Natural Nutrition, 2004) with an academic background in Environmental Studies and Human Kinetics from UBC. Combining these three areas of study has led to a passion for projects that connect land & food with the communities they serve. The result of this has been Tricia’s pivotal role in the Multicultural ‘Seed to Table Youth Garden Project’, a project designed to enable young people to experience the nutritional benefits and environmental responsibilities of creating organic food systems from seed to table. This Vancouver initiative fosters social responsibility & entrepreneurial practices. Additionally, Tricia is the founder of ‘Seeds of Plenty’, an organic, sprouted flour, baked goods company that sells at the UBC farm market and provides organic gift baskets to Corporate and private customers in BC. Tricia Sedgwick teaches classes in Nutrition at the Northwest Culinary Academy of Vancouver and at the Canadian School of Natural Nutrition. She also maintains a thriving private practice in nutritional counseling for individuals, families, and culinary professionals.

Mark Bomford

Mark Bomford currently works for the Faculty of Land and Food Systems at UBC, where he manages the UBC Farm and the Centre for Sustainable Food Systems. Prior to moving to Vancouver, Mark worked with the LifeCycles Project Society in Victoria, where he managed a number innovative of youth empowerment projects focussed on urban agriculture. He has a B.Sc. in Agroecology from UBC.The UBC Farm is considered to be the last working farm in the City of Vancouver. The farm includes 24 ha of mixed field and forest area on UBC's Point Grey campus and is home to numerous teaching, research, and community projects, including a student-run market garden which provides food for the campus community.

Aaron Ash

Aaron Ash has been passionate about the benefits of eating an organic, plant based diet for over 11 years. His interest in food has taken many forms in his life. He considers food choices to be the best and our most often personal choice for activism, peaceful, political and environmental. His most recent food activity has been the creation of Gorilla Food, a restaurant and take away window serving organic, vegan, raw food and beverage in downtown Vancouver.

Philip Be'er

Philip Be’er is a Certified Energuide Energy Advisor and an Experienced Educator who has worked in renewable energy, community development, building energy efficiency and farming for over twenty years. Philip has been involved in developing effective responses to the changes in global weather patterns (Climate Change) and to increasing fuel prices (Peak Oil and Peak Natural Gas); and to the effects that these changes are having on our food security and on our economy.

Mary Johnston

Mary Johnston is the founder of watermatters, a Vancouver based company dedicated to providing appropriate water quality solutions. Her passionate interest in water addresses personal, local, regional and global issues regarding this most vital, yet endangered, resource. Through speaking and writing she encourages a deepening respect and appreciation for water and the urgent need for our stewardship of this taken-for-granted substance that interconnects and sustains the well-being of all living things on this planet.

Dr. Erika Frank, MD, MPH

Erica Frank, MD, MPH, is a Professor in the Departments of Health Care and Epidemiology and Family Practice at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, a Tier I Canada Research Chair, and a Senior Scholar of the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research. She is also Founding Director of Health Sciences Online (creating a virtual health sciences university), President Elect of Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the Research Director for the Annenberg Physician Training Program in Addiction Medicine. Until 2006, she was a tenured Professor, Vice Chair (Academic Affairs), and Division Director (Preventive Medicine) in the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Frank is also Principal Investigator of the “Healthy Doc – Healthy Patient” project, a national (17 medical school) study of the effect of encouraging medical students’ healthy behaviors on their personal and clinical prevention habits.