Guest Lecture by Professor Uriel Safriel

On Tuesday, November 10^th, students, faculty and staff of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies had the opportunity to enjoy a very special guest lecture by Professor Uriel Safriel. Professor Safriel spoke about “Desertification, Climate Change and Biodiversity loss – processes and conventions, inter linkages and synergies” as part of the Environmental Politics course and its current exploration of UN work in regards to the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris. Uriel Safriel has recently served as the Chair of the Committee of Science and Technology of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, and is Emeritus Professor of Ecology at the Hebrew University, former Chief Scientist of the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, and former Director of the Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research. During his lecture at the Arava Institute he discussed the meaning and history of the concept of desertification, and gave an overview of previous and current positions of the United Nations facing the issue.