Ms Géraldine Chatelard is a historian and anthropologist of the contemporary Middle East, and an associate researcher at the French Institute for the Near East. She specialises in rural development, particularly among former nomadic communities, and the relations between local knowledge and environmental protection. She also has a long experience in sustainable management of natural and cultural – both tangible and intangible – heritage for tourism. She has worked with several international and national organisations, including UNESCO Iraq Office where she was Culture Programme Specialist from 2011 to 2014. She was actively involved in the MEDLIHER project which aimed to promote the implementation of the Intangible Heritage Convention in the Mediterranean region, and in the Euromed Heritage project.