Dr Zhou Jinfeng, the Secretary-General of the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF), a leading China-based organisation at the forefront of biodiversity conservation, environmental protection and sustainable development, visited UIC and offered a lecture as a Guest Speaker at the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences (DHSS) High Table Dinner on 30 March.

Dr Zhou Jinfeng

Besides leading CBCGDF, Dr Zhou Jinfeng is also an Executive Committee Member of the Club of Rome, a member of the World Commission on Environmental Law of IUCN, an expert of the Global Pact for the Environment, and a researcher at the Theoretical Research Base of Environmental Justice of the Supreme People's Court of China.

A Peking University graduate, Dr Zhou earned his PhD in Chemistry from Perdue University. Over the years, he gained a global reputation as a seasoned supporter of sustainable development, biodiversity conservation, environmental protection, and poverty alleviation.

Dr Zhou has played leading roles in the development of his home country by becoming a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) for the ninth, tenth and eleventh sessions; a standing committee member of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce; and Vice-Chair of the National Association of Vocational Education China (NAVEC) for the ninth and tenth sessions.

His lecture presented the audience with interesting “Reflections on biodiversity conservation, ecological civilization and COVID-19”. It highlighted the underlying dangers of environmental mismanagement, explaining the multiple connections between the COVID-19 global public health crisis and the continuous abuse of natural resources imposed by blind overemphasis on GDP growth and industrialisation “at any cost”.

Dr Zhou explained how a different, holistic approach to development is needed, both within governments and across the wider society, which is called to act responsibly and to contribute to positive change through the power of knowledge and daily conduct. Action and responsibility, he said, start with the choices that each one of us makes in various aspect of our daily life - from food to energy consumption, from water use to waste generation.

Questions from the audience were engaging and highly pertinent: Chen Chaofan, Year 2 student of Globalisation and Development (GAD), asked whether the world has learned the “lessons” of the COVID-19 pandemic: Dr Zhou replied that the opportunity to learn from the dramatic events of the past year is still there to be grasped.

Zhang Zhen, Year 4 student of Government and International Relations, asked whether economic growth and environmental preservation are mutually exclusive, to which Dr Zhou replied by providing examples of how sustainability can actually become an engine of prosperity.

Another student also raised the question of what the college can do to be “part of the solution”, receiving responses not only from Dr Zhou but also by Prof Chen Zhi, who took to the podium to highlight how the plans for expansion of the present campus are already taking into consideration important elements of sustainability.

Prof Adrian Bailey (left) presents souvenirs to Dr Zhou Jinfeng

Dr Zhou concluded the talk by inviting everyone to a change of mindset inspired by the calls for the ecological civilisation of President Xi Jinping, and by the very values of diverse, holistic, high-quality liberal arts education that UIC so proudly represents.

Some 150 students attended the dinner and, as High Table Guests, by relevant representatives of UIC’s management and faculty, including Prof Chen Zhi, Provost; Prof Stella Cho, Associate Vice President (Student Development); Prof Adrian Bailey, Associate Vice President (Internationalization) and Dean of DHSS (also Chairperson of the High Table Dinner); Prof Simon Zhao, Associate Dean for Research and Development of DHSS; Dr Charles Lowe, Associate Dean for Learning, Teaching and Student Experience of DHSS; Dr Edoardo Monaco, Programme Director of Globalisation and Development (GAD), who facilitated the event, given his long-standing research cooperation with CBCGDF, and served as MC for the evening.

From MPRO and DHSS

Reporter: Dr. Edoardo Monaco

Photographers: Wu Kunchi, Xu Yiheng

Editors: Samuel Burgess, Deen He, Zhang Fan

This article is available on MPRO website at: https://www.uic.edu.cn/en/info/1076/9463.htm 

Coverage of the event can also be found on CBCGDF channels at: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/5peVwh_ulmjYQHn0YBIV5Q and

https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/w0k3d5OLAefd1otYR1jtpQ