Expanding into "Arab Environment Monitor"

This blog was created in February 2006 as a virtual platform for updates and analysis of the Jordanian environmental issues and now I have decided to expand it into an Arab platform targeting the Jordanian, Arab and international environmental community.

I am an Ecologist by profession and education, and have worked for 10 years in environmental management with local and international organizations in a career that included Academic institutions, NGOs, research centers, community groups, media and currently government. I have also worked in various activities with the World Bank, IUCN, UNEP and most recently UNDP. In this career I focused on issues of communication and networking and discovered that information on the Arab environment is plentiful, contrary to what most Arab and international environmentalists think, but it is scattered.

I thought that one of my main missions will be to try to contribute to the huge task of bringing together such information.

I am not claiming that I can do this via a blog that is run and managed on voluntary basis and by one individual but I will certainly try my best.

I have discovered the powerful potentials of blogging in the begenning of this year. As a part-timer political writer and social activist with a social democratic identity, I launched a political blog in Januray 2006 called Jordan Watch. This blog has been my training ground. I have learned a lot bout blogging and the virtual alternative media platform. I have focused much of my attention on the political blog but I will start from now on to dedicate most of my time to the environmental blog which presents my mission.

The blog will be officialy declared and launched on October 1st after I pull together some good material for the other Arab countries since the majority of material now is focused on Jordan.

Although blogs started as personal diaries but they have matured to become strong and effective communication tools that can be managed easily with a user-friendly system that can accomodate serious professional content as well. To maintain its "blog" identity this site will contain a lot of personal opinions and analysis as well as linking to and highlighting content from the best sources of environmental knowledge in the region.

This blog will always be in a "transitional" state aiming for better content management and I will be very proud of any critical and useful comments that can guide the course of development of this blog.

I welcome you all and hope this platform will be useful.