17 March 2016

Dear devoted B.EN.A members and colleagues,

We are very sad to make this announcement to the B.EN.A. Community and academic and friends of the environment that we are deeply hurt with the information that we lost our beloved Founding Father, Prof. Dr. Fokion K. Vosniakos yesterday on March 16, 2016. As a very active person and lively personality, he was on the way to another B.EN.A. activity in Iaşi, Romania where his “biological heart” failed him at the Athens Airport.

Words will never be enough to appreciate and describe his never-ending, never-slowing endeavors to bring together the academia, students, public administrators and the stakeholders and disseminate the knowledge on environmental awareness and sustainable development in the Balkan Region and outliers.

Prof. Dr. Vosniakos, as also known “Papa BENA” in the B.EN.A. community will always be remembered for his efforts to sow the seeds of friendship and togetherness in the academicians, public administrators and communities and establishing a firm foundation for peace and improvements in quality of life for the future generations. His ideals were not only with the academicians but with the teachers at every level, from university to primary education, in order to disseminate the environmental awareness concept all the way to the pre-school levels.

Dealing with different cultures in the Balkan Region, Prof. Dr. Vosniakos had a special talent and personality to communicate and convince the people from more than twenty nations and international organizations. B.EN.A. would not have been at the current respected position without his never-ending/slowing efforts.

Along with founding B.EN.A. as an international association, another great gift to the scientific society Prof. Dr. Vosniakos gave was the Journal of Environmental Protection and Ecology (JEPE) which started publication in 1998 and achieved a 0,838 Science Citation Index Impact Factor in 2014. Countless number of academicians is indebted to JEPE for their advancement in their academic carriers and JEPE thanks all the authors for their contributions for its success. And the scientific community owes this achievement and success to Prof. Dr. Vosniakos.

As the Executive Board of B.EN.A., we are devoted to take the flag Prof. Dr. Vosniakos handed to us and continue on according to the mission of B.EN.A., while having Prof. Dr. Vosniakos as our spiritual leader, as we believe he would have wished us to do so. We are deeply hurt with his unexpected departure from this life, but we will always feel his presence in our future activities. It is our sincere goal to keep the scheduled upcoming meetings intact and continue to make the B.EN.A sprit to stay alive and reach wider communities in the years to come. That is what Prof. Dr. Vosniakos would have wanted us to proceed.

Rest in Peace Fokion, our “Papa BENA”…..

On behalf of EXECUTIVE Board of B.EN.A.
Prof. Dr. Georgios Vasilikiotis
Prof. Dr. Caner Zanbak
Prof. Dr. Milan Mesic
Dr. Mariana Golumbeanu