Our Charman, Peter Droussiotis, delivers his introductory speech, in Greek, at the Nicosia launch of the Cyprus Environment Foundation on 21st September 2023.

The English version of the speech is reproduced below:

Your Excellencies, Minister, Commissioner, ambassadors, distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, friends, it gives me great pleasure to welcome all of you this evening to our official launch here in old Nicosia of the Cyprus Environment Foundation, which is part of the hugely respected Conservation Collective, a global network of local foundations whose mission it is to fund effective grass-roots conservation initiatives to protect the environment, restore nature and safeguard against climate change.

First of all, I’d like to thank warmly President Christodoulides for placing this event under his auspices, and also to extend my thanks and appreciation to Minister Yiorgos Papanastasiou and Commissioner for the Environment Maria Panayiodou for agreeing to be our Guests of Honour at the event. My sincere thanks also go to my very good friend Andreas Kyriacou for Aelchemi fo generously sponsoring this event tonight. The Foundation and I are grateful to him.

It gives me great pleasure also to introduce and thank Ben Goldsmith, Chairman of the Conservation Collective, and a founding member of the Cyprus Environment Foundation. Ben is a passionate champion of environmental causes, a force of nature as far as the protection of the environment is concerned and certainly a source of inspiration to me and many others.

Of course, I must also thank Sofia Matsi, the Executive Director of the CEF for the close and productive collaboration both generally and also in the organisation of this event.

My thanks also go to the media for being here tonight to cover the event because an essential part of our mission is to spread the word and increase awareness about our work here on the island.

Above all, I am grateful to all of you for the interest that you have shown in this initiative which I hope will mark the beginning of a dialogue and of a lasting and productive relationship between you and the Foundation.

When I was approached in late 2021 to engage with the Conservation Collective in relationship to the formation and development of the Foundation, my colleagues and I on the Board of the UKCEC responded immediately and soon after agreed to support this great project, both materially and intellectually.

Our rationale is that Cyprus desperately needs this initiative and that the Cypriots living on the island themselves need to proactively embrace projects and actions designed to protect, restore, and enhance the island’s nature and environment. Additionally, as Cypriots of the diaspora, we feel compelled to make a vital contribution to this great cause.

But, for me, personally, there is a more intimate reason as to why I want to add my energy to this project and that rests upon the treasured memories of a child born and raised on this golden-green island, of Cyprus ‘s beautiful and unspoiled landscapes, of its legendary mountains, its pine-scented forests and the perfectly blue seas that surround it.

The Foundation will not, of course, perform miracles, nor will it seek to address all of the many environmental challenges facing the island, but I am convinced that, through selected partnerships and alliances, and with the support of sponsors and benefactors, such as yourselves, it will make a significant difference on the ground in relation to a series of targeted and worthwhile projects. We will soon hear about the projects currently being supported, as well as others in the pipeline.

My plea to all of you is to help us make a real difference on the ground here in Cyprus whose environment has not always been a top priority, though it needs to be. As the great Greek poet Pindar wrote “Do not spire to immortal life but exhaust the limits of the possible” and there is no doubt that there is so much more, so much more that the Cypriot people can do to exhaust the limits of the possible in relation to the conservation of what is probably the island’s most important asset – its natural environment.

(c) Peter Droussiotis