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Professor<br />

Steven<br />

Schneebaum<br />

and Jung<br />

Hwa Song ’11<br />

Professor steven schneebaum gave<br />

a breakfast talk to alumni on “what<br />

is this Case Doing Here? Human<br />

Rights litigation in u.s. Courts”<br />

on October 5 in the sais Rome<br />

Building. �<br />

In Washington, D.C., Vincent<br />

Wei-cheng Wang ’86 and Anna<br />

Yu-chia Ho ’12<br />

Vincent wei-cheng wang ’86 gave<br />

a breakfast talk to alumni on “taiwan’s<br />

2012 elections and implications<br />

for taiwan-China-u.s. Relations”<br />

on november 2 in the sais<br />

Rome Building. �<br />

ReFleCtions<br />

The Scent of<br />

Sustainability<br />

The scent industry<br />

is arguably the<br />

world’s single best<br />

example of agricultural<br />

sustainability<br />

and a positive feedback<br />

loop for farmers and<br />

the earth. You could say<br />

i am biased—i am the<br />

former perfume critic<br />

for The New York Times<br />

and the new curator<br />

at the Department of<br />

Olfactory art at the<br />

museum of arts and<br />

Design in new York<br />

City—but the facts are<br />

pretty clear.<br />

the industry’s raw<br />

materials are grown<br />

around the world: the<br />

astringent grass vetiver<br />

in Haiti, geranium leaf<br />

in Rwanda, patchouli<br />

in indonesia, pink peppercorn<br />

in Peru, cedar<br />

in morocco. scentmaker<br />

companies buy<br />

these from farmers and<br />

harvesters, distill and<br />

extract them, and their<br />

perfumers then put<br />

them into the perfumes<br />

of Hermès, Ralph<br />

lauren and Chanel.<br />

take laotian benzoin,<br />

for example. One<br />

of the world’s best scentmaterials<br />

companies,<br />

the switzerland-based<br />

Givaudan, realized that<br />

its supply of the special—and<br />

beautiful—<br />

tree that produces this<br />

resin was disappearing.<br />

the company took a<br />

close look at northeastern<br />

laos and found the<br />

reasons: the region was<br />

severely deforested, and<br />

the soil was depleted.<br />

alumni news & notes<br />

A village in northeastern Laos<br />

Givaudan’s experts,<br />

including a perfumer,<br />

went to laos and, with<br />

botanists and agronomists<br />

from their local<br />

partner agroforex,<br />

revolutionized local<br />

agriculture. they had<br />

villagers pioneering an<br />

agricultural approach<br />

that combined rice, red<br />

ginger and Styrax tonkinensis<br />

trees, the source<br />

of benzoin. For the first<br />

four years, villagers<br />

could harvest the rice<br />

and red ginger, which<br />

would enrich the soil<br />

and provide income.<br />

the rice and ginger<br />

would then be planted<br />

in separate fields, and,<br />

after seven years, villagers<br />

could start to collect<br />

benzoin gum from new<br />

trees. On top of these<br />

agricultural benefits,<br />

Givaudan built two<br />

local secondary schools<br />

and funded them for<br />

their first two years.<br />

Benzoin, the villagers’<br />

only significant<br />

source of currency, is<br />

back. the land is productive<br />

again, the villagers<br />

have both a school<br />

and their livelihoods,<br />

and Givaudan has reliable<br />

sourcing for this<br />

unique incense and can<br />

put it in perfumes for<br />

armani, Prada or Dior.<br />

we buy these scents<br />

and, in doing so, send<br />

money to farmers and<br />

their families in northeastern<br />

laos. unlike so<br />

many major industries,<br />

from petroleum to mining<br />

to manufacturing,<br />

the scent industry only<br />

functions if it sustains<br />

nature.<br />

it gathers and bottles<br />

these beautiful materials<br />

from around the earth.<br />

every bottle of perfume<br />

contains a world.<br />

—Chandler Burr ’90<br />

2011–2012 89

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