A foremost advocate of renewable energy and environmental protection, Professor Salah Arafa has joined the Advisory Board of NatureNews, Africa’s leading environment newspaper.
A statement signed by Publisher/CEO of NatureNews, Aliu Akoshile, said Professor Arafa brings to the board his unimpeachable pedigree of scholarship and social entrepreneurship as exemplified by his widely applauded Basaysa village environmental initiatives.
The statement said Professor Arafa is well known in Egypt and throughout the Arab world and beyond for his pioneering work with the utilization of renewable energies for rural community development and sustainable living.
He said Prof. Arafa, who earned a PhD in Solid State Physics from Cairo University in 1969, is an accomplished intellectual having been selected as a Fellow Professor for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Development at the Stromstad Science Academy in Stromstad, Sweden.
Mr. Akoshile noted that aside his unassailable contributions to academics, Professor Arafa played key roles in promoting biogas technology for environmental protection and production of clean energy and safe fertilizer in rural communities.
The advisory Board which was inaugurated on Tuesday has the King (Emir) of Dutse in the north western Nigeria and Chancellor of Sokoto State University, Alhaji (Dr.) Nuhu Muhammad Sanusi, as chairman, with the Kenyan environmental activist and founder, Friends of Lake Turkana, a UNESCO heritage site in the East African Rift Valley, Ms. Ikal Angelei, as member.
Other members, according to the statement, includes the Chairman of Stanbic Bank of Tanzania and three-time Minister and member of the Steering Committee of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) International Resource Panel, Professor Mark Mwandosya; and the consummate conservationist and Environmental Hero awardee of DW German TV network who is also President of Lekki Urban Forest & Animal Sanctuary Initiative (LUFASI), Mr. Desmond Majekodunmi.
Akoshile said the board also has distinguished Professor Abdoulaye Bathily, a three-time Minister and former Special Representative of the UN Secretary General/Head of the UN Regional Office for Central Africa; and Ms. Hawe Hamman Bouba, Executive President of the African Indigenous Women’s Organisation – Central Africa Network, a social activist and Commissioner with Cameroon Human Rights Commission.
Other board members, according to NatureNews publisher, are the Harvard trained Dr. Namane Magau who was on the executive team of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and served as Executive Vice President of the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research; and the renowned environmental activist and laureate of the prestigious Thoroft Rafto Memorial prize, Architect Nnimmo Bassey who is Executive Director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation.
While inaugurating the Advisory Board, Aliu Akoshile said the choice of the members was to underscore the publisher’s vision of making NatureNews the authentic African voice on climate change and sustainable environment.
He thanked the members for accepting to lend their weights to the cause of development journalism which the newspaper, www.naturenews.africa, symbolises.
Akoshile said the board has the historic duty to help Africa overcome the challenges of climate change and create a sustainable living environment for 1.367 billion people in the continent.