SAVING PLANET IN CRISES: Our collective responsibility
By Chief Ede Dafinone
I am delighted to welcome all of you to the 21st Chief S.L Edu Memorial Lecture. We are glad that once again, you have honoured our invitation as you have always done for the past two decades when we come together like this to discuss pertinent environmental issues and advocate for solutions to these issues, as a way of honouring the Founder of NCF, Late Chief Shafi Lawal Edu.
Last year, we hosted the 20th edition of the lecture as one of the activities to mark the 40th anniversary of the Foundation. The focus of the high-level conversation was Only One Earth which threw up a lot burning issues that featured later in the year in the global discussions at the two key UN events on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP27) in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, and on Biodiversity (CBD COP15) in Montreal, Canada.
Today, we have gathered once again for the 21st Chief S.L. Edu memorial Lecture with the theme: “Humanity and the Twin Crises of Climate Change and Biodiversity Loss”. This gathering is yet another opportunity to discuss important and urgent environmental conservation, and to mobilize urgent actions towards saving our world by all and sundry.
Our planet’s biodiversity is in crisis and declining at a faster and unprecedented rate than at any other time in human history. Wildlife is disappearing from their natural habitats and species are being decimated and becoming extinct at an alarming rate due to unsustainable utilization and destruction of wildlife habitats by humans.
The devastation that climate change is causing and will continue to cause means that large-scale action is required immediately. Desertification, herder-farmer clash, drought etc are few of the climate change crises staring us in the face.
We gather here today as stakeholders, from the Government to the academia, to businesses, to media and all, with a singular motive of discussing and providing some logical solutions to these existential issues and propose same to the appropriate bodies. I hope we are poised and ready for the work!
We appreciate our Guest Speaker; Mr Martin Harper, Vice President, Regions and Partnerships (Acting CEO Designate), BirdLife International, for honouring our invitation. Mr Harper has over 25 years global conservation experience. I am hopeful that his lecture today will help in setting an impeccable agenda that will help Nigeria and Africa to properly key into the global concerted effort to tackling the twin crises of Climate Change and Biodiversity Loss.
For 21years, Chevron Nigeria Ltd has consistently sponsored this annual lecture. We appreciate the successive leadership of Chevron for upholding this legacy.
Great commendation and appreciation go to the family of our late founder, the Edus, particularly his children who bear the torch. Posterity will always remember and reward you.
I thank the NCF BoT and NEC members for your unalloyed support to the work of the Foundation. Thank you for all you do for NCF, for conservation, and for Nigeria.
On behalf of the Board of Trustees and National Executive Council of NCF, I welcome you all once again.
. Being the welcome address by Chief Ede Dafinone, Chairman, National Executive Council, Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF), at the 21st Chief S. L. Edu Memorial Lecture, at NIIA Lagos, on May 9, 2023
Chief Ede Dafinone, Chairman, National Executive Council, Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF), presenting Chief S.L. Edu Research Grant to Iniunam Aniefiok at the just-concluded 21st Chief S.L Edu Memorial Lecture in Lagos
