October 21, 2018

The Stanford Bright Award for 2018 was won by Gidon Bromberg and Munqeth Mehyar, the cofounders of EcoPeace, for their exceptional contributions to global sustainability in the Middle East region.

Each year, Stanford Law School gives the Bright Award to individuals working in a specific region of the world. The award winner receives $100,000 and delivers a public lecture at Stanford University in California.

This year’s award, bestowed on October 4, recognizes EcoPeace’s work in bringing together Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli stakeholders to rehabilitate the Jordan River.

“Their work has been foundational in the field of environmental peacebuilding and their current projects are on the cutting edge, ambitiously tackling the world’s most difficult environmental, peace, and security challenges,” said the awards committee.

“This recognition and support will allow us to further our work and efforts, as we face our next challenge, promoting trans-border exchanges of water and solar energy in our regional Water & Energy Nexus project,” said Mehyar.

“Water scarcity is the most critical environmental issue that our region faces,” Bromberg added. “Managing our shared water resources is an issue of national and regional security and presents the opportunity to forge solutions that advance peacemaking in this region. Even in the most intractable of situations and conflicts, when we work together on a common objective that serves mutual interests, we can better the situation on the ground for both people and the environment, build trust and give good reasons for hope for a better future.”

The cofounders prepared a public lecture and participated in a panel discussion on “Peacebuilding through Environmental Conservation.”

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