The Middle East is a region that is rich in resources, if perennially short of water. The complex relationship between human beings and nature in this part of the world will be explored in a gathering taking place on campus this week under the aegis of the Council on Middle East Studies, part of the Yale Center for International and Area Studies (YCIAS).
The conference will bring together scholars and specialists from the Middle East, Europe and North America, who will discuss how the region's natural resources can be balanced with the demands of its rising population -- particularly how the global environmental system might be used to offset the region's current water deficit. Titled "Transformations of Middle Eastern Natural Environments: Legacies and Lessons," the event will be held Thursday-Saturday, Oct. 30-Nov. 1, at Luce Hall, 34 Hillhouse Ave. It is free and open to the public. The conference was organized by Abbas Amanat, professor of history and chair of the Council on Middle East Studies, and graduate students Magnus Thorkell Bernhardsson and Roger Kenna.
Among the participants will be representatives from the Environmental Research and Development Agency of Abu Dhabi, the Regional Organization for the Protection of the Marine Environment in Kuwait, and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, as well as universities throughout the world. Yale people taking part in the conference will include Karen Polinger, Frank Hole, Nancy Ruther and Harvey Weiss.
In addition to workshops and a poster session, highlighting the event will be a keynote adress, "History and Ecology at Cross-purposes," by Brian Spooner, professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, on Thursday, Oct. 30, at 4 p.m.
During the conference, a series of 16 landscape photographs of the Middle East by Luke Powell will be on display in Luce Hall.
In addition to the Council on Middle East Studies and YCIAS, the conference is sponsored by the Kempf Memorial Fund and the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. For further information, call the Council on Middle East Studies at 432-6252 or send e-mail to magnus.bernhardsson@yale.edu or roger.kenna@yale.edu. Additional information is available on the web site, www.yale.edu/
ycias/cmes/environment.