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The man who bridges troubled waters: Aaron Wolf mediates disputes around the world, bringing entrenched enemies to a common understanding: No one deserves to have the water shut off

Posted by: Maven on December 25, 2008 at 8:50 am

From Miller McCune Magazine:

In 1991, as Aaron Wolf was finishing his doctoral dissertation, the Madrid Middle East peace process was just getting under way. The two sides decided to tackle five sets of regional issues, including the equitable division of water resources. As a budding expert on the subject — his research focused on the Jordan River and its dual role as “a flashpoint and a vehicle for dialogue” — Wolf agreed to advise the U.S. team designing the talks.

Fifteen years later, one remnant of that failed attempt at Palestinian-Israeli peacemaking remains: the water negotiations. “They still go on,” Wolf says. “The two sides have cooperative projects. In the second intifada, when they realized how much violence there was going to be, they took out a joint advertisement asking both sides to try to protect the water infrastructure.”

The lessons of that enduring success have stayed with Wolf as he has pursued his remarkable dual career, as an Oregon State University scholar studying water-resource issues and a hands-on mediator of water disputes around the world. Water, he has come to understand, is so central to the human experience that it can help even bitter enemies find common purpose.

“That’s what’s so heartening about this,” the gentle geoscientist says. “Water can be used as a means for people of different ideological backgrounds to talk about a shared vision of the future.”

Read more from Miller-McCune Magazine by clicking here.

Hat tip to Water Wired’s Michael Campana, who describes Mr. Wolf as such: He is someone who is truly making this world a better place to live, and I am proud to have him as a friend and colleague.

December 25, 2008 · Filed Under International Water Issues

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