Leslie C. Bennett

Leslie Bennett was born and raised in Palo Alto, California. As the daughter of Jamaican and English academics, she visited the island of Jamaica regularly in her youth and developed a strong interest in the Jamaican experience and in the island’s national development.

From early on, Leslie has maintained an interest in environmental issues; she has pursued her academic studies accordingly. In 2000, she received an undergraduate degree from Harvard University in the area of Environmental Science and Public Policy. Her academic focus within that field was in the area of environmental justice – a field that deals with the inequitable environmental burden (ie, pollution, industrial facilities, crime, etc) and inequitable access to environmental goods (nutritious food, clean air & water, parks, recreation, health care, education, transportation, safe jobs, etc) borne by groups such as racial minorities, women, or residents of developing nations.

Following her undergraduate studies, Leslie worked as a technical officer in the Geneva, Switzerland headquarters of the World Health Organisation. There, she worked toward the preparation of an analysis of cross-sectoral policy approaches, globalization and trends in areas of international environmental and development efforts, report of which was included in the Department of Health in Sustainable Development’s contribution to the UN Secretary-General’s ten-year progress report on Agenda 21.

She spent further time working in South Africa as a consultant to the World Health Organization, researching and editing a South African case study document on household energy and health for presentation at the 2002 UN World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa. While in South Africa, Leslie also volunteered extensively with the Treatment Action Campaign, a movement of activists concerned with the provision of HIV/AIDS treatment for the people of South Africa in accordance with human rights law.

Leslie went on to study law at Columbia Law School and the University College London. Having come to the conclusion that a sense of place is crucial to individual and community vitality and to a collective sense of groundedness, she focused her studies on land use law, landscape preservation law and cultural property law, receiving her J.D. and LL.M degrees in 2006. While earning her degrees, Leslie gained further experience in the area of land use law and landscape protection policy through her work with the Municipal Art Society of New York, the Campaign to Protect Rural England, the Twentieth Century Society, and the London Office of the Foreign Agricultural Service of the United States Department of Agriculture.

Following receipt of her legal degrees, Leslie has worked with the London office of the international law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton, LLP. Her practice in the firm’s corporate department has been largely concerned with corporate governance issues and complex international mergers and acquisitions.

Since January 2008, Leslie has been living in St. Elizabeth, Jamaica and has been volunteering with organic farms in the parish. She has helped to organize an organic food delivery service for the Treasure Beach community and has learned a lot about the real work that goes into organic farming! She plans to continue gaining practical experience in horticulture and organic farming while using her legal skills and international experience to aid local farmers in making a viable living off of the land through small-scale organic farming.

Leslie’s background and ongoing experience, while varied, is in keeping with her longstanding appreciation of the role of land and landscapes in developing individual and community identities, and also with her understanding of food as a great connector between people and the land use politics that so often divide them. She is passionate about the development of sustainable, just and ecologically sound approaches to living. She hopes that her work will have a positive impact on the relationship between people and the land at the individual, community, national and international levels. Leslie sees the OIC as providing a framework and partners with which to develop these relationships and sees her involvement as a director of OIC as a natural and exciting step in her life’s work.