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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