Alexander von Bismarck

Alexander von Bismarck new Executive Director of the Environmental Investigation Agency.

In 2007: "The Environmental Investigation Agency, an international campaigning organization committed to investigating and exposing environmental crime, has announced the appointment of Alexander von Bismarck as its new Executive Director.

"Von Bismarck has over ten years of experience in international environmental science, investigations and policy. Von Bismarck conducted research in ecology and the impacts of climate change at Harvard University and the New England Aquarium. He also served in United Nations and World Bank, and lead 2006 United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) study to identify options to control the illegal trade of ozone depleting chemicals. Von Bismarck led an investigation into the illegal logging in Honduras; he testified at a congressional hearing on proposed U.S. legislation that would criminalize the trade in illegal timber and wood products. Von Bismarck joined EIA in 1995 as an investigator and campaigner; he has been part of EIA's international investigative team to expose criminal syndicates moving illegal timber throughout Asia and Latin America. In 2004 he uncovered shipments of baby-cribs made of illegal timber entering the United States."

"His mother, Kai Maristed, is an American novelist—a daughter of James Abegglen, who served in the Pacific as a marine and later became a specialist on Japanese business culture and a vice-president of the Boston Consulting Group. Sascha was born in Munich, but his parents divorced soon afterward, and, following a difficult custody battle, he split his youth between Germany and the United States."