We hope you will join us for our next meeting of the Environment-Security Cross-Cutting Initiative on "Conservation and Peacebuilding". The meeting will be held on Monday, March 10th from 12:00pm - 2:00 pm.
We will be joined by guest, Dr. Saleem Ali, who will explore the findings of his most recent edited volume, Peace Parks: Conservation and Conflict Resolution 
(MIT Press, September, 2007)
PLEASE RSVP to Jen Mulvey at jmulvey@ciesin.columbia.edu or 845-365-8988 by March 7, so we can order the right amount of food.
Saleem H. Ali Bio:
Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of Vermont's Rubenstein School of Natural Resources, and on the adjunct faculty of Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies For the 2007-2008 academic year, he is also serving as the Associate Dean for Graduate Education in Natural Resources at the University of Vermont. His research focuses on the causes and consequences of environmental conflicts and how ecological factors can promote peace. He is also on the visting faculty for the United Nations mandated University for Peace (Costa Rica), where he teaches a course on Indigenous Environment and Development Conflicts. Much of his empirical research has focused on environmental conflicts in the mineral sector and he is the author of Mining, the Environment and Indigenous Development Conflicts (published the University of Arizona Press, fall 2003). His most recent edited volume isPeace Parks: Conservation and Conflict Resolution (MIT Press, September, 2007), which has received cover endorsements from E.O. Wilson, George Schaller and Achim Steiner, and a foreword by Julia Marton-Lefevre.
Dr. Ali is also a member of the expert advisory group on environmental conflicts for the United Nations Environment Programme with a specific interest in transboundary conservation zones. As part of this effort, he is a member of the World Commission on Protected Areas and the IUCN Taskforce on Transboundary Conservation. He has also been involved in promoting environmental education in madrassahs (Islamic religious schools) and using techniques from environmental planning to study the rise of these institutions in his ethnic homeland -- Pakistan, under a grant from the United States Institute of Peace.
Some of his current research on environmental health perception in mining areas and social resposibility in the mining sector is supported by the Tiffany &Co. Foundation .
Prior to embarking on an academic career, Dr. Ali has worked as an environmental health and safety professional atGeneral Electric (based at GE headquarters in Fairfield, CT, and at silicone resin manufacturing sites in New York). He has served as a consultant for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Health Canada as an Associate at the Boston-based consulting firm Industrial Economics Inc. Pro bono projects include a mining impact prospectus for the Crowe Tribe of Montana and research assistance to Cultural Survival (an indigenous rights NGO).
He is also a professional mediator and has conducted workshops on consenus-building for private and public interests, as well as peer review of research publications for the World Bank, the [International Institute for Sustainable Development|http:\\www.iisd.org], The Woodrow Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program
, the Journal of Environmental Management, the Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, the Natural Resources Forum and Yale University Press.
Research appointments include a Public Policy Fellowship at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, a Baker Foundation Research Fellowship at Harvard Business School and a parliamentary internship at the U.K. House of Commons. Teaching experience includes courses on environmental planning, conflict resolution, industrial ecology, research methods and technical writing. Professor Ali received his doctorate in Environmental Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), an M.E.S. in environmental law and policy from Yale University, and his Bachelors in Chemistry from Tufts University (summa cum laude).
