Related External Links

• The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
• The University of the West Indies
• The Sustainable Development Network
  
• The Environmental Management Authority
• Caribbean Community Secretariat
• The United Nations Environment Programme
• The Caribbean Natural Resources Institute
• 2006 Public Lecture on the Environment
• 2007 Public Lecture on the Environment
• 2010 Public Lecture on the Environment

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THE DISTINGUISHED LECTURE SERIES ON THE ENVIRONMENT

The Distinguished Lecture Series rec- ognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions in the environmental field. A public lecture by the honouree helps to bring environmental issues to the fore. From government bodies to corporate ones, every kind of organisation with a product or idea to promote is aiming for two things: impact and efficacy.

The Cropper Foundation is not a big-budget player with the resources to create an internal public relations department or give free rein to advertising agencies. We work with what we have and, fortunately, what we have is clarity of purpose and very good partners. The Foundation’s Distinguished Lecture Series on the Environment is a public event at which some of the world’s leading thinkers on environmental issues address and interact with a diverse audience. While we can be niche-specific with many of our outputs (for instance, the text books for secondary schools or contributions to national-level discourse) the mandate of the education programme is clear: take the information we have and share it with as many people as possible.

The Lecture Series is an ideal vehicle for reaching individuals and groups who may not fall within any of our targeted demographics. In its intention – and perhaps even more significantly, the response of the public –
this activity validates much of how we see our work and its purpose. The environment is not the concern of the few but of the global community. It is not “our” work as in the Foundation’s work. It is “Our” work, the work of everyone who can participate in securing the environmental wellbeing of the planet. Speakers so far include:

• 2006 - Professor James Gustave Speth, Dean, Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies on “ The Caribbean and Climate Change: The Risks Ahead and the Needed Responses.”
• 2007 - Dr Cristián Samper, Director of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History on “The Web of Life: Why is biodiversity important to us?”
• 2010 - Mervyn Claxton, international consultant in sustainable development, on “Indigenous Knowledge and Sustainable Development.”
  

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