Posted by Guest post by Muhammad Makki In this guest-post, Muhammad Makki, a doctoral candidate at the University of Queensland, presents his reflections on a field visit to the remote Tharparkar coal region of Pakistan and the challenges of communal harmony and a diversified approach to addressing Pakistan’s energy crisis. The field visit was supported by the…
The sweeping slums of Khayelitsha outside Cape Town are a stark reminder of the endemic inequality that continues to haunt South Africa almost twenty years since the end of apartheid. Here we find around half a million people living in a sea of shacks that are often associated with urban blight across the developing world.…
The most recent episode of the Transcending Boundaries series; Perspectives From The Central Albertine Rift Transfrontier Protected Area Network, focuses on Eastern Africa, and the tri-border region between Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Northern Rwanda, and Western Uganda. We explore transboundary conservation efforts through geographic, socio-political and ecological lenses. We hear from a diverse range…
In this guest-article, Dr. Tore Knos, member of the Disaster Aid USA Response Team and its Board of Directors, and Dr. Michele Zebich-Knos, Professor Emeritus at Kennesaw State University and former Director of the International Policy Master’s Program, discuss the current situation in South Sudan and how long-term strife affects the environment. This blog post…
In this guest-article, Dr. Christopher S. Clarke of the Osprey Foundation describes their work in Palestine and Israel to address the most pressing environmental needs of communities impacted by growing inequality and access to resources, and how such an ecological approach might be a means of overcoming despair. The Middle East is a region where…
Armenia’s Resource Routes from Saleem H Ali on Vimeo. Among the various states that emerged from the demise of the Soviet Union, Armenia had the most well-established diaspora. Owing to a history of marginalization and oppression from various neighboring powers, particularly in the earlier part of the twentieth century, Armenians fled their ethnic homeland in…
Guest article by Bernadetta Devi “Rare Earths” are a group of 17 elements that are currently used in a wide array of modern technologies, ranging from hard disk drives to lamp phosphors to hybrid car batteries. At present 90% of these minerals are mined in China due to a range of economic and environmental factors.…
I would like to thank Peggy Liu, Christine Chen and Phoebus Xu of the Joint US-China Collaboration on Clean Energy (JUCCCE) for facilitating my visit to Tianjin Eco-city in September, 2012. Special thanks to the administration of the Eco-city for the tour and presentation provided during the visit. As the new Chinese leadership takes…
Updated December 1, 2012 The geographic extremities of any continent tend to have strategic value and it is thus no surprise that the so-called “Horn of Africa” was contested and divided between the colonial powers. Italy, the United Kingdom and France vied for control here. While the highlands of Abyssinia remained a formidable challenge for…
[Updated October 20, 2012] The tragic shooting of Malala Yousafzai has once again brought Pakistan in the news cycle as the country’s existential complexity remains elusive. The image of Malala draped in a demure head scarf, often expected in Islamic tradition, is reminiscent of another girl from this part of the world who remained nameless…
Six years ago, I received an invitation to participate in an event on peace-building in the Middle East at the University of California, Los Angeles. The seminar had been organized by a local lawyer, Josef Avesar, along with academics at UCLA to find a novel way to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The idea was…
The protests that have paralyzed international relations between Muslim countries and the West are a tragic reminder of the educational disparities which exist in today’s world. There is systemic inadequacy to appreciate critical thinking in the Muslim world which leads to this kind of knee-jerk emotionalism. Although many Muslims may claim to be educated…
Guest Blog on observations and insights during a field expedition and course on “Conservation Beyond Borders” in the border regions between Albania, Montenegro and Kosovo, summer 2012. By Dr. Anna Grichting, Senior Fellow at Institute for Environmental Diplomacy and Security, University of Vermont. Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, Qatar University Layers, Linkages…
This article is based on a field visit I made to Guangxi, China in June 2012 as part of a broader research project on sustainability in the pearl farming sector supported by the Tiffany & Co. Foundation. Special thanks to the Guangxi Academy of Social Sciences (particularly Xiaoqing Huang and Hongsheng Chen) for facilitating my…
Newswatch Book Review An important, and often under-appreciated, outcome of the World Summit on Sustainable Development ten years ago, was the launching of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), aimed at getting national commitment to improving the use of natural resource wealth more transparently for meeting development goals. As the EITI board meet in Lima,…
I had an opportunity to visit Cuba in May 2012 under a licensed program with the Vermont Caribbean Institute. This article is a follow-up effort to learn and engage with other environmental researchers yearning for more cooperation between the United States and Cuba. I have not dealt with the political aspects of the conflict between…
Among the many projects that ensued from the United Kingdom’s “Millennium Commission,” the most sustainable in word and deed appears to be an environmental education endeavor in the southwestern part of the country known as “The Eden Project.” Until mineral deposits were found in the sixteenth century, Cornwall remained an economically marginal tract of…
The death of over a hundred Pakistani soldiers due to an avalanche on April 7 has brought forth the forgotten frozen frontiers of Siachen in the news cycle. This is the world’s highest battlefield where more die of hypothermia than of battle wounds and yet no end is in sight for this senseless conflict. Seven…
As the United States considers the role of nuclear power in its national energy strategy after the Fukushima disaster, I requested policy analyst Dr. Richard Watts to share perspectives from his recent book on environmental conflicts around the license renewal of The Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. Guest post by Dr. Richard Watts On…
The fertile alluvium deposited by the mighty Indus river and its tributaries in Pakistan have given the country’s demographic heartland of Punjab an agrarian edge. Yet, errant canal planning and over-pumping from tube-wells have degraded vast tracts of land. Salinity and water-logging afflicts around 6.3 million hectares of land and an additional 4,000 hectare…
Amidst two meters of snow, world leaders from various sectors of society descended this past week on the Swiss resort town of Davos for the annual meeting of The World Economic Forum. Much has already been written about the history of the forum, and it has received adulation from writers such as Parag Khanna, as…
By Saleem H. Ali and M. Saleem Javed The current predicament of ethnic and religious minorities in Afghanistan and Pakistan is a cause of grave concern, and it is essential for the international community to be aware of multiple complexities and rivalries in the region. For this article I partnered with an ethnic Hazara human…
During the course of my research on the extractive industries, I have found colored gemstone mining to be the most elusive in terms of regulation but also with great potential for development in remote areas. Two eminent field gemologists whom I have worked with over the years share some thoughts on how ecological conservation might…
During the Fall Semester of 2011, I had an opportunity to serve as visiting critic at Cornell University for a design studio featuring the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea. As the world watches and waits for transitions in North Korea, following the death of Kim Jong Il, the faculty member who led…
Joint Book Review of: Roman, Joe, Listed: Dispatches from America’s Endangered Species Act. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2011. Seidl, Amy, Finding Higher Ground: Adaptation in the Age of Warming. Boston MA: Beacon Press, 2011 As we reflect on global climate change policy in the next decade, the seminal metric for environmental policy-makers will be…
