Lecture: 40 years of the Emirates Natural History Group: A Conversation with Peter Hellyer

TIME: Refreshments from 7:15pm, lecture from 7.30pm

VENUE: Salon 1, Park Hyatt Abu Dhabi Hotel and Villas, Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi

LECTURE TITLE: 40 years of the Emirates Natural History Group: A Conversation with Peter Hellyer

LECTURE SUMMARY: This year, the Emirates Natural History Group, the UAE’s oldest environmental non-governmental organisation, celebrates its 40th Anniversary. To mark the occasion, Peter Hellyer, a Life Member of the Group and a former Chairman, as well as author or editor of numerous books on the UAE’s natural history and archaeology, will give a talk to the Group on his memories of many years of involvement with the country’s history and heritage. A collection of anecdotes and tales of discovery, the talk will take the format of a discussion with current Group Chairman Arabella Willing.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: PETER HELLYER first came to Abu Dhabi in 1975, to make documentary films for the late Sheikh Zayed. He has been a committee member of the ENHG since 1985 and is now a Life Member. He was chairman for a couple of years around 1990-1991. He launched the group's peer-reviewed journal, Tribulus, in 1991 and has edited it ever since. He was the first recipient nearly twenty five years ago of the Jashanmal Annual Award for Natural History, the forerunner of the Sheikh Mubarak bin Mohammed Award, which he has also received. He has written or edited a dozen books on the UAE's history, archaeology and natural history and was also a founder member over twenty years ago of the Emirates Bird Records Committee, of which he remains a member.

Between 1991 and 2006, he was also Executive Director of the Abu Dhabi Islands Archaeological Survey, ADIAS, finding numerous important archaeological and fossil sites throughout Abu Dhabi, often in collaboration with two other former Group Chairmen, Simon Aspinall and Drew Gardner.

His current interests include birds and UAE history before the federation, topics that he often covers, besides politics, in his fortnightly columns for The National, while his official job is as Director of External Information and Research for the government's National Media Council

He was given UAE citizenship by the President in 2010, for his contributions to knowledge of the country's heritage and natural history, and received the Abu Dhabi Award in 2014

His wife, Wafa, was Group Secretary for nearly a decade from the early 1990s.