Spend an evening with Baldwin County environmental journalist, filmmaker, explorer and author Ben Raines April 4, at 5:30 p.m.

The University of South Alabama's (USA) Eastern Shore Speaker Series showcases a diverse range of lectures and performances by artists, scholars and industry experts at the USA Baldwin County Campus Performance Center in Fairhope.

Raines is the USA Environmental Fellow and Writer-in-Residence. On Thursday, April 4 at 5:30 p.m., he will present "Saving the Clotilda and America's Amazon: A Prescription for South Alabama's Future."

When reading about Raines he is classified as a journalist and filmmaker, but he is also an explorer. He discovered what many had searched decades for, the remains of the Clotilda, the last ship to carry enslaved Africans to the United States. He has also worked to protect a 70,000-year-old underwater forest in the Gulf of Mexico off the Alabama coast.

In addition to the Clotilda documentary, Raines has several documentary films to his credit. They include, "The Underwater Forest" and "Saving America's Amazon." His book titles include, "The Last Slave Ship: The True Story of How the Clotilda Was Found, Her Descendants and an Extraordinary Reckoning" and "Saving America's Amazon."

Raines is a former reporter for Mobile's Press-Register. His stories emphasize the extraordinary biodiversity of the Mobile-Tensaw Delta. At USA, Raines works for the Stokes School of Marine and Environmental Sciences and the Stokes Center for Creative Writing.

The University of South Alabama's (USA) Eastern Shore Speaker Series featuring Ben Raines is Thursday, April 4 at 5:30 p.m. The event is free to attend but seating is limited so registration is required. For more information or to register, visit SouthAlabama.edu/SpeakerSeries.