GECHS

Alexander Lopez is the director of the Mesoamerican Center for Sustainable Development of the Dry Tropics at the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica. He is also a lecturer at the International Center for Political Economy in Heredia Costa Rica. He has conducted extensive field work in the Brazilian Amazon, México and Central America on issues related to socio-environmental conflict resolution and the management of transboundary river basins. Currently he is a member of the Expert Group on Environment and Conflict Prevention (Division on Early Warning and Assessment, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)), a member of the University Partnership for Transboundary Waters, and a core group member of the initiative: Environment, Development and Sustainable Peace: Bridging the Gap between North and South. His latest publications include a book chapter on “Population movements, environmental change and social conflicts in the Brazilian Amazon” (in Jon D. Unrush, Marten Krol and Nurit Kliot Environmental Change and its implications for population migration, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004), as well as a report on Environmental Conflicts and Regional Cooperation in the Lempa River Basin (Adelphi Research, CEMEDE, Woodrow Wilson Center). He has also published a book on Conflicto y cooperación ambiental en cuencas internacionales centroamericanas: Repensando la soberanía nacional (UNA, UCR, FUNPADEM, KUKULKAN, 2002).