July 25, 2007

By Claudia Capos

Jan L. McAlpine, a leading U.S. government advisor, policy maker, negotiator and facilitator on international issues, has assumed a new role at the University of Michigan to contribute to and learn about collaborative research and education on environmental sustainability.
           
The 17-year government-service veteran, currently on a one-year sabbatical from the U.S. Department of State, is serving as a senior research fellow with Natural Resources and Environment and the first visiting scholar at the Graham Environmental Sustainability Institute.

She assumed her dual role in September and will remain at the University through August 2007. Afterward, McAlpine plans to return to the State Department’s Office of Ecology and Terrestrial Conservation, where she is the senior advisor and negotiator on forests in the Bureau of Oceans, International Environmental and Scientific Affairs.
           
McAlpine says she chose to come to Michigan because the University is highly respected as a research and teaching institution. “What I wish to learn,” she says, “is how the basic research carried out at the University can be used to develop sustainability strategies that support practical and realistic problem-solving measures for many world problems.”

“The richness of the academic and research community at U-M is truly a gold mine,” she adds. “In exchange, I hope to substantively contribute to Natural Resources and Environment, the Graham Institute and other schools for which 25 year’s of experience in environment, trade and international policy will be useful.”

At Natural Resources and Environment, McAlpine is guest lecturing on international negotiations, policy making and intervention strategies to achieve change. She also is sharing insights from her career in government, where she has worked for four different federal agencies. “I can give students a pretty realistic glimpse of that world if they wish to learn about it,” she says.  

In 1989, after 10 years in the nonprofit arena, McAlpine went to work for the Environmental Protection Agency on international policy issues, including trade and environment. Subsequently, she worked as a staff coordinator with the President’s Council on Sustainable Development and then served for four years in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative in the Executive Office of the President as a negotiator on issues involving international environment and trade.

She was assigned to forests and timber trade, which has become an area of specialization.  Since 1998, McAlpine has worked at the State Department where she develops and implements international forest policy and leads U.S. delegations in global-level negotiations on forest-related issues.

As the lead U.S. representative on forests, McAlpine urged the United Nations Sanctions Committee to support the extension of U.N. sanctions on Liberian timber in the face of timber concessions exchanged for arms. She then facilitated the formulation of the Liberia Forest Initiative, a strategy advanced by the Bush Administration in 2004 to build sustainability in Liberia’s forest management and to eliminate corrupt timber practices.

McAlpine worked with the World Bank, the World Conservation Union and other NGOs in forging a multinational partnership to accomplish this objective. In addition, she was a key player in the development and implementation of two separate initiatives, the Congo Basin Forest Partnership (2004) and the President’s Initiative Against Illegal Logging (2005), which were launched by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell.  

“The issues related to forests are broad-based and impact many related areas, including the economic benefits derived from selling forest products and the social concerns related to indigenous people, as well as environmental challenges, such as biodiversity protection, water conservation and climate change,” McAlpine explains. “To achieve sustainability, both governmental and private institutions must adopt an interdisciplinary, inter-institutional approach that addresses these economic, environmental and social objectives.”

Last year, McAlpine co-chaired a 96-country conference in Mexico focused on preparations for addressing the forest agenda multilaterally in the U.N. She also served in 2004 as the chair of the International Tropical Timber Council, a 60-country-member commodity organization.

Growing up in French-speaking Africa as the daughter of missionaries and the eldest of six children, McAlpine gained an early understanding of the developing world and its perceived role in environmental sustainability. “Compared to Westerners, who take a lot for granted, my upbringing has given me a more realistic idea of the kinds of sacrifices involved in protecting natural resources,” she explains.

“If indigenous people must make a choice between cutting down a tree or killing an animal and feeding their families, who am I to intervene?” she asks. “During my career, I have attempted to find ways we can change incentives and disincentives, so that people, forests and wildlife are equally protected.  That’s sustainability. It cannot be achieved successfully without addressing all the systems that impact natural resources.”

McAlpine attended one-room schools in Rwanda and Burundi, and boarding schools in Kenya and South Africa. During her family’s stay in rural Rwanda, she witnessed the brutal killings, burning of homes and flood of refugees that sparked the first wave of genocide in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

However, her early experience in Africa enabled her to develop interpersonal skills and a cultural understanding that she has integrated into her negotiation approach, including an irresistible urge to make points by telling stories, she says.  “My childhood experiences greatly influenced my decision to work in the area of sustainability and natural resources,” McAlpine says. “It’s a secular alternative to being a missionary.”