Claudio Pacifico

Claudio Pacifico is an Italian career diplomat. During his career, he has worked in a number of European countries, the United States, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. He was posted to Iran during the Iranian Revolution; to Somalia and to Bangladesh, where he was the youngest ambassador in Italian history. From 1997 to 2004, he was Italian ambassador first in Sudan, and then in Libya. Since 2007, he has been the Italian ambassador in Egypt and Italy’s Representative at the Arab League.Pacifico has written extensively on international politics, publishing articles and books on a range of subjects including the Iranian Revolution, the Israeli-Palestinian Crisis and the Italian foreign policy towards Asia and Oceania. He has organized expeditions off the beaten track, from the Persian to the Australian deserts, from the Hindu Kush to the Karakorum, from the Gobi to Papua New Guinea, from the Tibetan Plateau to the Himalaya Mountains, from the Andes Ranges to the Bengal and Yucatán jungles but, above all, into the Sahara, over a span of time of about forty years. Pacifico has published several travel journals particularly on the Sahara. His last book, Dieci Anni in Egitto Libia, e Sudan (Ten Years in Egypt, Libya, and Sudan) was published by Sharqiyat in 2010.Pacifico has contributed to various travel magazines, among which Sahara, itinerari e passioni. He is committed to environmental conservation and has contributed to several projects for the preservation of the delicate ecosystem of the Sahara, supporting the establishment of national parks in the Acacus Mountains and Jebel Al Uweynat in Libya, and the Gilf Kebir Plateau in Egypt, while backing sustainable development projects in the oases of Siwa, Kharga and Dakhla, in Egypt. He has promoted research and restoration missions, particularly in the Gilf Kebir, in the world-famous Cave of Swimmers and Foggini Cave, in Wadi Sura.

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