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CORVALLIS - Some of the more controversial natural resource, environmental, ecological and political issues of the day will be explored in a colloquium on Monday, Sept. 23, at Oregon State University.

Titled "Emerging Ecological Policy: Winners and Losers," the event will attract five leading experts from across the nation to speak, and audience participation will be encouraged.

The seminar is free and open to the public, organizers say, and a variety of researchers, students, policy analysts, land managers, agency personnel and others are expected to attend.

The colloquium, sponsored by the Center for Analysis of Environmental Change at OSU, will begin at 8:30 a.m. at the LaSells Stewart Center.

"This discussion will explore the distributions of benefits and costs as they relate to natural resource and environmental protection policy," said Denise Lach, a conference organizer. "It will examine broader societal effects of forest and fisheries management, consider the old approaches and whether they will be adequate for the future."

Key questions, officials say, will include:

- How is the debate about "rights" affecting current and future policy choices?

- How do we make fair decisions about who wins and who loses in ecological policy?

- How can new ecological policy support conflicting rights?

Several prominent speakers will address the conference with widely differing viewpoints, Lach said. After each prepared talk, time will be allowed for interaction with audience members. The day will conclude with a panel discussion at 3:15 p.m. to synthesize information and approaches.

Speakers, times and topics will include:

- Karl Hess, the Cato Institute, 9:15 a.m., "From Government Prescription to Individual Choice: The Rise of Markets, Private Action, and Effect-Based Strategy in Future Environmental Policy."

- Robert Keiter, the University of Utah, 10 a.m., "Ecological Policy and the Courts: Of Rights, Processes, and the Judicial Role."

- Carolyn Merchant, the University of California at Berkeley, 11 a.m., "Fish First: The Changing Ethics of Ecosystem Management."

- Robert Lee, the University of Washington, 1:30 p.m., "Are Our Tenure and Resource Management Institutions Ecologically Rational?"

- Alan Randall, the Ohio State University, 2:15 p.m., "Ecological Policies for an Age of Political and Social Fragmentation."

The Center for Analysis of Environmental Change is a partnership between OSU, the Corvallis laboratory of the EPA, the Pacific Northwest Research Station of the USDA Forest Service, and Battelle Pacific Northwest National Laboratories.