Maestro, if you please...

Yesterday morning I got an e-mail from Ben Gurion University giving me full acceptance into their masters program. By this time in 2011 I will have an MSc. in Desert Studies, with a specialization in Environmental Studies! This means that the Blog is on!

Welcome family, friends, and interested onlookers to Milk and Honey, where I will be documenting my experience at the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies and Ben Gurion University, both located in the Negev Desert in the south of Israel. While the focus of my masters research will be fairly specific and the nitty gritty details of interest to only a few, the scope of this particular masters program encompasses far more than just soil biology and its relationship to the physiological ecology of the Argan tree (pictured in the blog title). Here is a quote from the Arava Institute’s website:


Here, the idea that nature knows no political borders is more than a belief. It is a fact, a curriculum, and a way of life.


The explicit mission of the Institute is to bring people together from all over the region and all over the world, people who all have a stake in the natural resources that are endangered by environmental degradation and climate destabilization. There are two paths – one in which increasingly scarce resources become a source of conflict, and one in which they become a source of cooperation. There is hope: already, there are people who have graduated from the Institute working in the environment ministries of Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Jordan. It may not seem that monumental in the face of such a monumental conflict, but it’s a start.

I get on a plane to Tel Aviv on the 23rd of September, and until then I will try to periodically fill you in on some more details – where I’ll be living, what I’ll be doing, and why I’ll be doing it. Then once I get there the fun will really begin!