Alumni Focus Attention on Local Impact of Climate Change

Embassy Nicosia’s Public Affairs Section, with funding from the European Office of Public Diplomacy, awarded a grant to the Environmental Stakeholders Forum to carry out a series of four workshops to raise awareness of the implications of climate change for Cyprus

In order to foster continued engagement with alumni of U.S. Government programs while addressing environmental concerns in the leadup to the Copenhagen conference on climate change during December 7-18, Embassy Nicosia’s Public Affairs Section (PAS), with funding from the European Office of Public Diplomacy, awarded a grant to the Environmental Stakeholders Forum, a bicommunal network of environmentalists established in January 2007 under the USAID-funded UNDP Action for Cooperation and Trust (ACT) program, to carry out a series of four workshops to raise awareness of the implications of climate change for Cyprus. PAS provided additional funds to enable two American envronmentalists, Professors John Carroll from the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Georgia, a 2008-2009 Cyprus Fulbright Senior Scholar, and Dale Lightfoot from the Department of Geography at the Oklahoma State University, who had received a grant from the Council of American Overseas Research Centers in 2007, to return to Cyprus to help lead the workshops. Workshop topics included: desertification, biodiversity conservation, vulnerability of coastal habitats, and water management. Audiences included Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot environmentalists, university students, the media, and other interested individuals from the two communities. In addition to the workshops, participants collaborated on the drafting of a common statement on the implications of climate change for Cyprus that was delivered to President Demetris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat requesting that the two leaders advocate that desertification, biodiversity conservation, the need for integrated coastal zone management, and the wise management of water resources be included on the agenda of the Environment Technical Committee that the leaders established at the outset of the peace negotiations.

American Professors John Carroll from the University of Georgia, and Dale Lightfoot from Oklahoma State University helped lead the workshops

Workshop topics included: desertification, biodiversity conservation, vulnerability of coastal habitats, and water management.

Audiences included Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot environmentalists, university students, the media, and other interested individuals from the two communities.