Welcome speech

Z. Teklehaimanot

School of Agricultural and Forest Sciences, University of Wales Bangor, LL57 2UW, UK

Honourable Kesis Belay Mekonen, deputy head of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, distinguished guests and dear participants

It is an honour and a great pleasure to welcome you on behalf of the organisers of this workshop on “Biodiversity conservation in ancient church and monastery yards in Ethiopia” convened by UWB in collaboration with EWNHS.

At the outset, I would like to congratulate EWNHS for making it possible for this workshop to be held and for managing to assemble an impressive mix of stakeholders, policymakers, researchers and experts in the field. For some of you it is an opportunity to join with those who have been conducting research on biodiversity for most of their careers, for others it is the opportunity to learn more about biodiversity in Ethiopian Orthodox church and monastery yards. In every case, it is important for all of us to gather together in such a congenial atmosphere to discuss the problems faced by the Ethiopian Orthodox church and monastery forests and their possible solutions. I am confident that the exchanges between participants during this two-day workshop will raise awareness about why it’s important to protect and improve the biodiversity of church and monastery yards and about how best to accomplish this.

I would also like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank the British Government for funding this workshop.

Honourable Kesis Belay, distinguished guests and dear participants

Allow me to congratulate the research team of this project for their great effort and significant contribution.

The present workshop has been designed to present the findings of the Darwin Project to you, who will then address the complex and multi-dimensional issues and consider future strategies for improvement of the conservation and management of the biodiversity of church and monastery forests.

Honourable Kesis Belay, distinguished guests and dear participants

The workshop program covers a wide range of aspects, but you will notice that there is ample time for discussion, during which I hope all the participants will roll up their sleeves and consider critically both the problems and possible solutions being presented by the research team. This will lead at the end, we hope, to the production of recommendations for improved conservation and management of the biodiversity of the Ethiopian Orthodox church and monastery forests.

Finally, I conclude my welcome speech by kindly inviting Honourable Kesis Belay to officially open the workshop.

Thank you.