Intensive Course on Environmental Issues in Israel, Lille, France

Vision

This project gave students at Sciences Po Lille access to an Israeli environmental policy specialist via an intensive, nine-day course on the environmental impacts of conflict in Israel and its surroundings. This project was spearheaded by the Israel Institute in Washington, DC.

Activity

Prof. Tal taught a course entitled “The Environment and Conflict Management” to 38 students at Sciences Po Lille. The course explored the linkage between conflict and the environment in Israel and the broader Middle East, as well as possible technological and diplomatic solutions to environmental issues in this region.

Through Prof. Tal’s lectures, students learned about the impacts of warfare on the environment; the role of international environmental law and diplomacy in resolving environmental conflicts; and the key transboundary environmental problems in the Middle East. The course included a simulation to design a treaty for Israeli/Palestinian/Jordanian joint water management.

israelinstitute.org/programs/international-course-grants

Israel offers a microcosm of a global situation: A meeting point of three continents, at the middle of the twentieth century, this tiny country was still home to an astonishing assemblage of mammals, birds and reptiles.

- Alon Tal

Alon Tal

Prof. Alon Tal, an environmental specialist, is the Chair of the department of public policy at Tel Aviv university. Tal is a co-founder of the new Israel forum for Demography, Society and Environment; a founding director of the Israel Union for Environmental Defense; and a founder of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies. He is the author of “Pollution in the Promised Land: An Environmental History of Israel” and “The Land is Full: Overpopulation in Israel.”