Richard Steiner

From 1980 – 2010, a marine conservation professor with the University of Alaska, stationed in the Arctic (Kotzebue 1980-1982), Prince William Sound (Cordova 1983-1997), and Anchorage (1997-2010). He was responsible for the University of Alaska’s conservation and sustainability extension effort, and was producer / host of the Alaska Resource Issues Forum, a public television program on controversial natural resource issues.

As the University of Alaska’s marine advisor for the Prince William Sound region of Alaska from 1983 – 1997, he was directly involved in oil / environment issues, and advised the emergency response to the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill in 1989. He helped found the Regional Citizens Advisory Councils, the Prince William Sound Science Center, helped formulate federal and state oil spill legislation, and first proposed settling the legal case between Exxon and the government and applying much of the $1 billion settlement toward acquisition and protection of ecologically critical habitat along the coastline of the oil spill region.

Subsequently, he has worked globally on oil / environment issues – including oil spill prevention, response, damage assessment, and restoration – advising the United Nations, governments, NGOs, and industry. He served as the Chief Technical Advisor for the government of Pakistan organizing the environmental damage assessment from the Tasman Spirit oil spill in the Arabian Sea in 2003 -2004; served on the Independent Scientific Review Panel commissioned by Shell through IUCN for the Sakahalin II offshore oil development in eastern Russia; served as technical expert on the public environmental review for the Russia-China oil pipeline in Siberia; advised the government of Lebanon during the eastern Mediterranean oil spill during the war with Israel in 2006; helped estabish a Citizens Advisory Council in western Kazakhstan to oversee oil development in the north Caspian; participated in the first comprehensive environmental damage assessment of oil spills in the Niger Delta, Nigeria; and drafted the U.N. manual on environmental damage assessment for marine oil spills.

He has published on a broad array of conservation topics – forests, fisheries, economic policy, endangered species, maritime issues, oil and environment, citizen involvement / environmental democracy, ocean protection, global warming, and the global environment. He is a member of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Commission on Environmental, Economic, and Social Policy (CEESP), and the Working Group on Social and Environmental Accountability of the Private Sector (SEAPRISE).

He works internationally on conservation and sustainability issues, in Russia, Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. This work is focused on establishment of Citizens Advisory Councils for oversight of resource development, extractive industry responsibility, and increasing public and private sector conservation finance.