Turmoil postpones one component of environmental scholar exchange

The program brings environmental leaders from universities, governments and nongovernmental organizations in the developing world to Brown for a semester of advanced environmental studies. It also provides opportunities for Brown undergraduate and graduate students to work in the field with the scholars once they have returned to their homelands.

by Kate Bramson

Deborah Lapidus ’05 and Bekah Rottenberg ’03 both planned to conduct research this summer in Nepal with a Nepalese scholar who spent this past semester at Brown in the Watson Institute’s International Scholars of the Environment Program.

However, due to internal conflict in Nepal just weeks before they were set to travel, the undergraduates’ trips are being postponed until next summer.

In its second year, the International Scholars program brings environmental leaders from universities, governments and nongovernmental organizations in the developing world to Brown for a semester of advanced environmental studies. With funding from the Luce Foundation, the Watson program also provides opportunities for Brown undergraduate and graduate students to work in the field with those Watson scholars once they have returned to their homelands.

It was through the Luce Environmental Fellows Program that Lapidus and Rottenberg had each received $4,000 to study in Nepal this summer.

Lapidus had planned to study the impacts of small-scale renewable energy projects on the people in rural Nepal, particularly the women.

Rottenberg had planned to study the health effects of obsolete pesticides that have been stored in warehouses throughout Nepal.

Both Lapidus and Rottenberg developed their research projects with the help of Jugal Bhurtel, a senior trainer at Nepal’s Training Institute for Technical Instruction. They worked with him in one of the classes that was open to Brown students as well as the Watson environmental scholars.

In that international environmental policy class, students worked in small groups with one environmental scholar at a time.

Lapidus, who said she knew nothing about Nepal before working in the class with Bhurtel, said the scholars’ presence in the class was a definite asset for the Brown students.

“It really made the course come alive, just to see on any issue we’d bring up, all eight of [the scholars in the class] had a perspective on what it meant for their country,” she said.

When the International Scholars of the Environment Program awarded certificates to its international participants in mid-May, scholar Momodou Badou Sarr, deputy executive director of Gambia’s National Environmental Agency, addressed his Watson colleagues. He praised the program and ended his talk by saying that he and the other scholars were waiting to host Brown students at their home organizations.

Other undergraduate projects were still under consideration by the Luce selection committee the week of May 13. Also, a few graduate study projects have matched students with environmental scholars in Africa and Brazil.

As for Bhurtel, he was eager in early May to discuss the work he planned to pursue with both Brown students this summer. Having worked closely with Lapidus and Rottenberg to develop their research projects, Bhurtel planned to be their translator.

But upon his return to Nepal after his semester at Brown, Bhurtel decided to postpone the students’ research. Intense fighting between Maoist rebels and government security forces led to his decision. Their scholarships will be deferred until next summer.

“I unfortunately heard from Jugal today that the situation in Nepal is quite desperate, particularly in the rural villages, and, therefore, the project must be postponed until next summer,” Lapidus said May 17.

She remains optimistic that the internal situation will improve by next year.