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 Participants have been selected from
a larger list of people whom we hope will attend as invitees, at their
own expense. Participants represent a balanced group of scholars and
professionals from Europe and the U.S.; because of funding constraints,
African participants are less numerous than would be ideal. Their roles
are central, however, in identifying and including other African individuals
for later phases of reflection and discussion. Each participant has
extensive experience with research, conservation projects and government
agencies, and can represent varying perspectives, posing pertinent questions
and providing information.
Many scholars whose work is relevant are already in residence at Yale,
and will serve as resources for the conference sessions. Robert HARMS,
a professor of African history, has written extensively on the ivory and
slave trade, and colonial influences in the Congo River basin. David APTER
has worked and traveled extensively in Africa, analyzing social and political
systems there. Dr. William ASCHER (Duke University) has extensive experience
in natural resource use policy-making and developing countries. Jean Paul
GONZALEZ, a French virologist in residence at the Yale Medical School,
currently supervises research on environmental degradation and the spread
of hemorragic fevers such as Ebola through animal vectors in African forest
regions. Eric WORBY, studies the anthropology of development projects and
political processes in southeastern Africa, and has taught in Canada as
well as the United States. Anthropologist Patricia PESSAR has established
interdisciplinary programs and courses for the study of immigration and
transnationalism at Yale. Takeshi INOMATA conducts archaeological research
in Guatemalan forest settings. Dan ESTY directs the Yale Center for Environmental
Law and Policy. Luis GOMEZ-ECHEVERRI has developed the Public-Private Partnerships
for the Urban Environment program in his association with the UNDP and
is also a doctoral candidate at FES. Steve KELLERT, our second faculty
advisor, also of FES, has created models for the valuation of wildlife
resources and has worked with numerous international conservation agencies.
Archaeologist Frank HOLE conducts and directs research involving global
climate change; anthropologist Enrique MAYER has conducted ethnographic
and economic analyses of policy influences on rural communities in Latin
America and will thus bring a comparative perspective to the sessions.
Mark ASHTON teaches sylviculture at FES, supervises the local chapter of
International Society of Tropical Foresters and teaches seminars on the
creation of management plans for protected areas. Owen LYNCH holds graduate
degrees in both anthropology and law from Yale University, and has since
worked for World Resources Institute and the Center for International Environmental
Law. David WATTS, a physical anthropologist, is best known for his research
on gorillas in Rwanda's mountain regions, and currently studies chimpanzees
in Uganda. Sharon OSTER, of the Yale School of Management, studies and
teaches about non-governmental organizations. Leonard WANTCHEKON uses his
training in economics to accomplish quantitative analyses of political
policies in the developing world. James SCOTT, a political scientist, has
written about resistance to imposed social and economic change within rural
communities , and founded Yale's Program in Agrarian Studies. Andrew WILLARD,
Yale Law School, has experience in the application of policy sciences to
environmental issues. Dr. William FOLTZ, Yale Political Science Department,
an expert in African related affairs will leadind an informal discussion
concerning affects of change on conservation activities.
Provost Alison RICHARD conducts research about lemurs in Madagascar, and
has also been involved in community based conservation there. She has supervised
the writing of four consecutive dissertations on the Sangha region, both
in Anthropology and in Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
(FES). Her depth and breadth of knowledge make her, and her students, an
important anchor for the Yale trinational conference. Three doctoral students
in residence at Yale have conducted research in the trinational region,
and have created this proposal together: Heather Eves (socio-economics
of wildlife use, Congo), Rebecca Hardin (historical anthropology, C.A.R.),
and Stephanie Rupp (ecological anthropology, Cameroon) provide a core triad
covering the three countries and several different disciplines. Yale is
thus the logical location for an intimate assembly of academics and practitioners
whose work concerns this pocket of the central African forest. We will
provide needed neutral ground for discussion, contributing to clearer understandings
of the region itself , of conservation as a transnational process, and
of resource management as an example of contemporary social relations with
specific historical roots, moving toward a future which has yet to be determined.
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