The construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) heralds significant environmental shifts on the Nile River. Scholars, scientists, and journalists alike have indicated the potentially disastrous drought conditions that Sudan and Egypt may face as this hydropower dam fills with water, reducing the overall water supply upon which these countries rely so heavily for irrigation, domestic use, and other applications. This coverage meshes with an ongoing discourse on water scarcity and drought in the Middle East & North Africa region – and, indeed, a concern over anthropogenic climate change around the world. Unfortunately, coverage of the GERD rarely discusses concomitant ecological threats caused by the dam, including sedimentation loss, water salinization, reduced biodiversity, and human displacement. In this study, I argue that drought is an insufficient encapsulation of the GERD’s effect on downstream Nile communities - and that a holistic assessment of ecological consequences wrought by the dam is crucial to mitigating its potentially dire agricultural and economic effects on Sudan and Egypt. Drawing on scientific literature, particularly studies by hydrologists, engineers, ecologists, and chemists, this paper offers a holistic assessment of the environmental consequences facing Ethiopia, Egypt, and Sudan in the wake of the construction of the GERD and offers comparisons to case studies of similar dams in Turkey, India, and China. This paper also supplements the scientific perspective by including the relevant political forces at work that have, thus far, failed to create an effective political and legal compromise around the equitable use of Nile waters. Viewing the Nile as a legitimate geographic unit of analysis offers scholars the opportunity to surpass area-studies boundaries that separate the politics of Ethiopia from those of Sudan and Egypt. By elucidating the interconnected ecology of these countries via the Nile, this paper also hopes to speculate on alternative regional frameworks that enrich our understanding of constituent nation-states.

There has been no sustained study of Palestinian cuniculture (rabbit husbandry). While this presentation attempts to identify and map the extent of Palestinian cuniculture, this study is not merely in order to establish an aspect of Palestinian culture but as one of the ways to measure the socioeconomic devastation of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. As a matter of fact, it is a clear example of how political and military conditions impact cultural expression among Palestinians. Thus, as much as cuniculture can be claimed as an interesting and proud aspect of Palestinian heritage it has also been shaped within a dialectical process with aspects of the Israeli occupation that attempt to limit and debilitate Palestinian self-sufficiency and expressions of that identity. While it may be initially assumed that a study of cuisine or animals is a frivolous manner to approach the Arab-Israeli conflict, this presentation will demonstrate that cuniculture is actually a quite informative subject to clearly reveal the negative aspects of occupation while also underscoring the creative and positive efforts by Palestinians to thwart that occupation and survive as a culture and a people—quite literally as an existential question of whether they have enough to eat or not. In other words, cuniculture is a means to address the issue of whether Israeli policies are a form of (cultural?) genocide.