Ali Yachkaschi


Ali Yachkaschi is an Iranian professor of Environmental science, environmental activist and author. Following his high school diploma, he left Iran to continue his higher education at the University of Göttingen in Germany. He achieved a B.Sc, M.Sc as well as a PhD degree in management and policy of natural resources from the University of Göttingen. He is known as the “Father of Environmental Sciences in Iran”, due to his outstanding efforts and achievements to publicize the awareness to environmental protection in the country, including the foundation of environmental sciences as an independent field of study in 1974 at the University of Tehran, Iran.
During his career in universities of Tehran and Mazandaran, he initiated numerous exchange programs for students and academic staff of Iranian and German faculties of forest and environmental sciences, thereby contributing to strengthen the mutual cultural and scientific understanding between scientific centers of both countries.

Biography

Ali Yachkaschi was born in Yachkasch village, a mountainous village located within the forested areas in south of Behshahr, Mazandaran province in northern Iran. He accomplished his primary, secondary as well as high school in Behshahr, before he left to Germany to carry on his higher education at the Georg-August University of Göttingen. Upon his return to Iran in 1967, he contributed to found the environmental sciences as an independent field of study within the faculty of natural resources of the University of Tehran. He was awarded numerous prizes and was acknowledged several times for his efforts in terms of education and research in environmental sciences. Examples can be referred such as being appreciated as the outstanding university professor in Iran, the veteran professor of the University of Mazandaran, National Environmental Prize, and the golden statue of the Iranian association of environmentalists. He also initiated one of the earliest attempts towards the idea of Dialogue Among Civilizations within the German academic landscape.

Experiences and honors