diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 8b215c0..6184fab 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -4,6 +4,8 @@ All notable changes to `:vips` will be documented in this file.
 
 ## master
 
+- remove unused vips_error_buffer_copy() declaration to fix compatibility with
+  libvips before 8.9 [Waschnick]
 - refactor callBase() for maintainability
 - work around a php-ffi memory leak in getPspec() [levmv]
 - work around a php-ffi memory leak in arrayType()
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index a091cf7..4089894 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -48,7 +48,7 @@ to your `composer.json`:
 
 php-vips does not yet support preloading, so you need to enable FFI globally.
 This has some security implications, since anyone who can run php on your
-server can use it to make calls off into any native library they can find.
+server can use it to call any native library they have access to.
 
 Of course if attackers are running their own PHP code on your webserver you
 are probably already toast, unfortunately.
diff --git a/src/FFI.php b/src/FFI.php
index f7a8277..0da75ca 100644
--- a/src/FFI.php
+++ b/src/FFI.php
@@ -443,7 +443,6 @@ private static function init(): void
 int vips_shutdown (void);
 
 const char *vips_error_buffer (void);
-char *vips_error_buffer_copy (void);
 void vips_error_clear (void);
 void vips_error_freeze (void);
 void vips_error_thaw (void);