Registration is requested for all programs, which start at 7 p.m. in the Aquarium’s Simons IMAX® Theatre unless otherwise noted. Programs last approximately one hour. Most lectures are recorded and available for viewing on the lecture series archive page.

Email aquariumlectures@neaq.org with questions about our lectures, RSVPing, or for more information.

Postwar Afghanistan is fragile, volatile, and perilous. It is also a place of extraordinary beauty. Evolutionary Biologist Dr. Alex Dehgan arrived in the country in 2006 to build the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Afghanistan Program, and preserve and protect Afghanistan’s unique and extraordinary environment, which had been decimated after decades of war. 

The efforts of Dehgan, a former diplomat working for the Wildlife Conservation Society, were central to the creation of the first Afghanistan National Park Program. In his book, The Snow Leopard Project: And Other Adventures in Warzone Conservation, Dehgan takes readers through some of the most dangerous places in postwar Afghanistan as he and his team work to establish the country’s first national park, complete some of the first extensive wildlife surveys in 30 years, and act to stop the poaching of the country’s iconic endangered animals, including the snow leopard. 

Dehgan will reflect on innovative approaches to advancing the environment and security in some of the most politically and ecologically fragile places in the world, while exploring connections between conservation and political stability. This talk will also consider the larger changes of the political landscape and evolving U.S. positions toward Afghanistan, while showing spectacular imagery from Afghanistan that never crosses our televisions or computers.

Doors open at 6 p.m., and there will be a cash bar from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.

A book signing of The Snow Leopard Project: And Other Adventures in Warzone Conservation will be held in the lobby after his presentation.