Spotlight: Nick Kulibaba

Newly Elected ELC Board Member, Washington, DC

• Why is the work of the Environmental Literacy Council important to you?
  The work of ELC is, for me, an opportunity to ensure that the objects of my greatest professional passions—biodiversity conservation, sound environmental stewardship and a sustainable economy—can be responsibly conveyed as, perhaps, an inspiration to those who will succeed us over time.


• What are you working on right now?
  As always, I’m working on a multitude of things:
  - Helping IUCN and the MacArthur Foundation to get the global climate change center off the ground
  - Working with a major clothing manufacturer/retailer on implementation of their corporate social responsibility strategy
  - Working closely with ELC staff to kick-start the next phase of our fundraising efforts
  - And NOT forgetting that it’s fall, which means clean-up chores on my little farm


• Favorite class when you were a kid?
  One of the most enlightening classes I ever had was a Freshman high school course in “Comparative Ideologies,” focusing on the philosophical differences that were the underpinnings of the Cold War. It was a real adventure in intellectual growth in which we were trusted to discern the many layers of thought and experience that forge the world political systems.


• Last book you read?
  The Smaller Majority by Piotr Naskreeki. The book focuses on species—arthropods and insects, fish, reptiles, amphibs and the like, all of which are “smaller than your finger.” The photographs are beautiful and quite astonishing and the text is both informative and pure fun.


• Last place you travelled?
  A few weeks ago I had a wonderful weekend in the Shenandoah Valley with my “Indian crowd,” most of whom had grown up as missionary kids or government dependents in India. While Virginia might not be very exotic, it was a weekend in which we all spoke in our best Hindi, Punjabi and Telugu accents, ate South Asian food and waxed rhapsodic about our own experiences during the days when the Raj was fading into the twilight.