Juan Carlos Chebez, for whom is not known to be a great naturalist and Argentina, an advocate of our flora and fauna. Sunday, dear Sacha John we went. Rest now. But never go at all, that gives us much ... his life, his books, songs, the number of protected areas that momentum, his children, his passion ... passion that spread to all those who ever heard it, and it was a passion so strong that contagious. So, leaving many disciples, many followers of his tireless advocacy for nature.
Now it is our task to pursue their dreams, which are the dreams of many. I hope that their work is reflected in ours, yours. That all he did serve to open up our ways of love, appreciate and respect our Pacha! Always present
-Juan Sacha!
case you did not knew ... an interview ...
A note
And one day he also left.
At the age of 49 years died Juan Carlos Chebez. He was one of Argentina's most renowned naturalists, being a reference to threatened species issues and problems of protected natural areas of our country. All missions will feel his loss.
At just 13, he founded and directed an environmental group: Association for Conservation of Nature Argentina. Between 1982 and 1989 held various positions in the Technical Department of the Fundación Vida Silvestre Argentina, from where he launched working groups which emerged researchers, naturalists and conservationists who now occupy important positions in govern-ment institutions and NGOs. Since 1987 Mission advised the government in defense of their natural heritage. In 1990 he joined the National Parks Administration where he was responsible for the Conservation and Management Division, served as advisor to the President and director of the NEA delegation. Chaired the Ornithological Society of Silver / Aves Argentinas. With outstanding performance in the Area Department of Biodiversity Research and Conservation of Natural History Foundation Félix de Azara. He wrote numerous articles on ornithology, mammalogy and conservation, and several books, including: wild mammals in the archipelago of Tierra del Fuego (1993), Those who go (1994 with later reissues and his most famous book), Fauna missionary (1996) and Guidelines natural reserves in Argentina (2005-2006).
We reproduce an interview he recently conducted outside where you can meet du thought and his legacy.
"Conservation properly understood, supports the development"
Juan Carlos was born in 1962 and since very young began to dabble in the conservation of nature. Self-taught, gained recognition from their peers and had an outstanding performance in the preservation of the Atlantic Forest in Misiones Province. He currently serves on the Natural History Foundation Félix de Azara and the Municipality of San Isidro.
Tell us about your beginnings in the conservation of nature in our country.
was born in 1962 and started from a very young Armand environmental group classmates, Martinez Fatima Institute. It was 1976 and not much talk of ecology at that time in Argentina. From we began to connect with defending the few environmental organizations, the Ornithological Society of Silver, today Aves Argentinas, the Association Natura, now integrated in some way to Aves Argentinas, and a few months later, in establishing the Foundation '77 Vida Silvestre Argentina. We were very close to all that stage of birth of the foundation.
interested in realizing the ideal that we got more by television, by Jacques Cousteau in his documentary, or the famous Felix Rodriguez de la Fuente, now the anniversary, thirty years after his death, which occurred while filming a documentary in Alaska. I remember at that time that news affected us. His documentaries in Venezuela, for example, were among the first that showed the South American fauna, our own fauna. Also his encyclopedia Salvat, in bundles in the back showed an endangered species. This is how we begin to ask "And here, in Argentina, there are no endangered species?".
a vocational career I continued on this subject, which I took when I did military service at that time, being mandatory the Island States. I was lucky to find this remote island with the support of the Navy to relieve it. Then, resolutely, I joined the Life Foundation conservation when Silvestre Argentina invites me to join their ranks, a task in which I was involved for 8 years.
Later in the Ministry of Ecology of Misiones, worked as an advisor to the Undersecretary of Ecology in 1987 and 1989. In 1990 I was summoned by the National Parks Administration, where he served as first Director of Natural Resource, then Advisor to the President and, finally, for Competition, won the post of Director of the Northeast Regional Delegation my move involving to Iguazú, for missionary work in the jungle and all the NEA from 1994 to 2002. While I himself as a naturalist and conservationist, I am interested in the national picture environments, species and I'm not in favor of specialization.
I think one of the evils of our time is excessive specialization. I think our leaders need a general at his side, not a specialist. There are excessive industry specialists and no longer see the tree, which means that no measures are being taken together to understand the Puna, to understand the steppe, to understand the Chaco forest. For example, one thing is the Chaco with its growing, its flood pulse, and quite another to the Dry Chaco, with its fires that maintained the natural pampas, the fire was part of the ecosystem and was not afraid. For
Knowing these relations, go into the bush, we must go and muddy. I was lucky in all those years, to go through, and knowing the country. I am currently playing in the Natural History Foundation Félix de Azara, a leading NGO, which started its activities in the beginning of this century, which is dedicated to the protection of natural and cultural heritage of the Argentines in the Area of \u200b\u200bBiodiversity. I am also "loaned" to the Municipality of San Isidro as Director of Ecology and Conservation of Biodiversity, a new area that was created two years ago at the initiative of Mayor Gustavo Posse. So I went to pay after a walk long the country.
also published works on our threatened species: the best-known book is "Los Que Se Van", which has its first edition in 1994 and a reissue anteaño four volumes of the past. Also the "Guide to the Nature Reserves in Argentina", among other titles.
If I have to define say that I am a naturalist career, he mistakenly did not follow in due course degree in biology-would have saved me many headaches head, but he could have the pleasure of doing conservation in Argentina. A wonderful country with a diversity of landscapes and environments and, therefore, unique species. Now I see joy The issue came to settle and not suspected at first that could become a fad.
Can you take stock of the evolving nature conservation in all these years and what situation we are today?
I think we are much better in the sense of a common understanding of the topic. At that time the morning typically developmental, Clarin, published not a single note of ecology and to the readers' letters were rejected. The Nation could get to publish something and also La Prensa, Clarín but today is a day where almost every day or every other day, there is a touching story ecology. I think that is clearly reflected the global environmental movement, that the world was a reality long ago. This awakening in the late seventies and early eighties in Argentina, was here to stay and was so understood by the people.
As the country is too urban, has a vision of urban ecology, with emphasis on pollution, what we do with waste, recycling them in the water crisis, in short, the problems associated to urban ecology. This is an issue that I absolved, not because it is not interesting but because I think there are many people dedicated to it and does it well. As the issue of protection of wildlife. At first I was confused nature conservation with the protection of nature, the subject focused on animal welfare.
My first grand prix as ACNA (Association for Conservation of Nature Argentina) gave me the Humane Society Argentina. I remember it fondly because that entity began to realize that the issue was not only check on the dogs, cats, horses of fire-task and very interesting and worthy to be followed by. We were already talking about saving species and what might be lost were not individuals of a species, entire species were replaced one that said "I am the sole owner of all this, and I frame who stays and who goes." For some species are no longer in our or our Pampa steppes or in our mountains and forests. Argentina was not free of that wave of widespread destruction, we call extinction.
However, the species must be differentiated as a natural process that existed in the planet's history. Large living past and the megatherium, the great glyptodonts in mammals and dinosaurs led to his famous extinction, which is still under discussion, which responded to natural processes. The current process, generated by a single species, should be called killing. It's really the issue that I turned me, or how to save the most endangered species from extinction and how to promote the best solution: the creation of nature reserves. Contrary to what many believe, to confine them in zoos to reproduce, or grow them in nurseries, or have sperm banks, or frozen embryos, or seeds, the best solution for me is to take large chunks of creation natural environments, and kept in the state as possible, where the species continues to evolve into entire ecosystems or as complete as possible, interacting with other species. Even
today, but we see it, there is an evolution, adaptation is a continuous but not perceive taking place. So I turned himself to the promotion of the reserves of all kinds, municipal, private, national, provincial. Dimensions to this issue is where the big deficit.
Putting things in black and white, most environmentalists are today, we understand more about the macro-ecology. We still have a negative imbalance and vital primary task of ecology, which is the defense of nature, and is well reflected in the decision of San Isidro. In San Isidro the people defending the public: there was a Department of Parks & Hiking had an Environmental Management Authority which prevented was installed in San Isidro a polluting industry, but there was a Department of Ecology and Biodiversity Conservation. There was the belief among colleagues that could not continue to create a bigger pool in San Isidro, which was a densely populated since ancient times and there were no spaces. However, during my tenure have created two new and we had tripled. There are also some more in the pipeline. We show that much remains to be done and that there is much that, even at the municipal level, we can do. Let alone in private, what can be done by the conservation of biodiversity.
is a topic that I think is forgotten, denied, and that has not entirely clear and that there really is a debt. Since several years we have a list of areas that must be saved, are published, are available in bookstores, but, apparently, no one can take from the official level the task to pursue them, at least, with the speed desired. There are important advances in the national park system in recent years, but it alone is not enough. Must be complemented by the provincial systems, by municipalities, by private and that's where we are failing. There are more people getting into Uritorco to see flying saucers and things esoteric that the endemic species is the place. There are unique species in the world living on their summits; own birds of the Yungas in some deep ravines and valleys, such as remembering that once the rain arrived in the north of Cordoba and Chaco Serrano call today. But the Chaco Serrano was wild at one time and memory were these species in these mountains, Los Terrones and all that is in private hands and no one talks about expropriate or buy. We talked about a lady province that has, if it proposes doing so.
How do you see the compatibility between conservation and development?
I think they are two things that are completely out of hand. There mucho tiempo que nuestro discurso fue catastrofista, porque era un reflejo del mensaje que nos llegaba a nivel mundial. Es como que el hombre estaba en una carrera desenfrenada de destruirlo todo y de golpe se dio cuenta y apretó el freno. Todo frenazo de golpe, si vamos andando a una determinada velocidad, produce un sacudón, el cual se produjo a través de frases célebres que yo decía al final de mis charlas, como "la humanidad tardó treinta siglos en crecer, le quedan treinta años para frenar antes del abismo" o la del poeta Burns "No veo lo que hay delante, pero lo presiento y me aterra".
Pero también, a los amigos productores, yo les diría que se actualicen, ya que los conservacionistas serios hemos long ago given up the post disaster as not only causes the desired effect, but it moves and disperses forces. One of the big problems we have and youth away, I notice that I give at conferences is that the flood of messages about problems that can not be solved makes young people away from a stance of resistance or rebellion-in descontábamos that they were going to stand up and fight for the utopian ideal but seem they do not, down the arms and repeat that famous phrase of the French king "after me the deluge."
the other party with respect to conservation, technically speaking, first we were protectionist, we did not want to be played any wild animal, we did not want to hear about the hunting of any kind. Communing with Groucho Marx when expressed in a pleasant saying "the game will sport the day that hares use shotgun." Today
as conservationists accept use of resources, including hunting "sport" or regulated if you will, but do not share personally. Let's not get to say whether or not sport as it is the discussion of the chicken or the egg. Is feasible for many species, the existence of a good hunting ground with a jungle environment, which prevents the transformation of the forest in a North American pine forest, or in a marsh harvest alligators instead of turning it into rice. They are wiser solutions, which require a total change of approach, not only the resource alligator, or wildlife resource, but the environment as a whole. Thus it appears the eco-development, a concept with which we are more in debt. We have better examples of how to protect and know better how to protect the resources of how to use them wisely. In the jargon of the reserves, are the only allowed use hard scientific, tourism or ecotourism highly regulated and nothing else. We also have a number of reservations are now softer than most in the world in both area and quantity, which are protected landscapes, multiple-use reserves, RAMSAR sites. All of these categories admit that they are reserves with the man inside, to which we are actively promoting. We must bear in mind that there are a number of families living there and the possibility of resolving the conflict with their relocation, sometimes a solution is very likely that even the same families and offer support, do not always see the man as a negative factor.
In Missions had very good experiences in this regard, when we were years from town to town with plans of management in provincial parks people. Trembling, believing that people would claim the land for them, almost did not admit or to make an interpretive trail within those areas. They said "poor little things, they have no place and you no longer want to open up a path for people to see."
That told me a missionary farmer, whom I feared he would ask the land claim. They gave us a lesson, took the provincial parks as an important value. And today is the backbone of the eco-tourist driven missions, proving that not only supply missions is to go see the ruins of San Ignacio and the Iguazu Falls, but there is something bigger to display. It is totally viable, is possible. Rather, I fear I have-I ventures in "to be" call the works of serious impact, large enterprises miners, who are now on everyone's lips as, large dams, which are also back on the mat and similar works such as pipelines, roads, etc..
Instead there are provinces that have already said they want no more and no one hectare flooded with plebiscites, as did Misiones, a plebiscite in which citizens asked if they wanted Corpus Dam and other dams and citizens voted by NO, but like that other political management did not spread further. Now they want to install Garabí but this sets a legal precedent that will be very difficult to overcome for those who want to make this dam that has its closure in Corrientes, Misiones but floods. Fills an entire people which makes it a peninsula, with the cemetery out of the water and two or three blocks, the rest of the people, I mean Azara, nothing more, nothing less, "and named after the famous naturalist flooded by a dam terrible after another that would plug encadenaría Moconá Falls, which would be named Roncador. That is the real project and people should know. If Corpus is the most likely reservoir water would reach the foot of Niagara Falls. Ie Falls falling on still water, who will make great nautical adventure is now the tourist boom is reconcesionando now?
With what you're saying, you're putting an almost equal level of conservation with the "commercial exploitation" of natural resources as a measure to conserve them.
Yes, exactly. I just came from San Juan and regretted not being able to be with the governor. I know him now-vilified and publicly criticized years ago from the National Congress pushed laws that became a national park and then Leoncito San Guillermo. San Juan is the third province in percentage of area of \u200b\u200bprotected areas. There is also a list of twenty reservation lands to state, calmly, could be declared with the contributions of these enterprises.
So would you say to Gualeguaychú bin, even though my friends are angry local environmental. I deeply regret that specialists have not been called since it seems people are not trained in Argentina or who submitted ideas. We have raised in 2002, with engineer King when he was president of National Parks, an interesting project backed by the then Minister of Tourism, now Governor of the Province of Buenos Aires, Daniel Scioli and the province of Entre Rios. The proposal involved the creation of the first Bi-National Park with the Uruguayans, which meant some expropriations in Uruguay. Argentina put
Palmar National Park and a strip covering protected all that is Caraballo Bank, which is now unprotected. The Lower Caraballo, who was filled with eucalyptus trees because they bought a plantation companies, we removed and a marsh full of cappuccino or Bow-Tie, many of them threatened. But the sand was and today I have to make a sailing trip around the islands Uruguay prosecutors and the mouth of Queguay see where we know there are puma, have seen traces of an otter as big, if not a copy Wolf lost necklace is a copy giant river otter, cross-swim corzuelas have the pictures, as we have seen and what we could shoot. In the sand banks raised the skimmers plovers and collar. A Bi-National Park would be an honor, and Uruguay a reference, because if there is something to go loose eastern brothers is in a good park system. Do not have a system comparable to ours. I say this with regret because I would be arguing on one side and the other, clearly, what we do with the Uruguay basin, not a bin installed, built, it is utopian to think that will be demolished to be relocated, beyond evil that has been planned and chosen location and that there has been no prior discussion of mandatory. That is also part of the things that concern us in these ventures to call "serious impact." Appears after a political decision, dizzying, with studies environmental impact, which usually make consultants who met only by the study. For me it would be good consultant in the study to establish whether the work is right or wrong, if there are more benefits than negative impacts. If negative impacts are, the idea is that the work does not have to do if the thing is fought the work could be done and if, from now, outweigh the positive impact the work has to be done. But taking into account mitigating or compensatory measures. Missions
the dam did Urugua-í, flooding about eight thousand acres in a place where there was to be dammed or one hectare. I say this with sorrow because I knew place. Eight thousand five hundred acres of repression where the province has undertaken and accomplished by creating a provincial park, upstream of eighty-four thousand hectares. Then he took San Juan field, five thousand acres to offset the impact of Yacyretá. Then we are on track to establish the idea of \u200b\u200benvironmental compensation. Sadly
not heard this idea in San Juan with mining. What I found were bitter opponents of the mining saying all of the governor, a national political celebrity on TV saying some things entirely debatable, partly true, partly exaggerated. But I did not see a serious discussion about a output, how is all this.
Good conservationists, I think they are open to ongoing negotiation, so it has both political component of conservation. But partisan politics as it once was understood sadly. Many colleagues, including our self to move, continue with his speech catastrophic without realizing the damage they do. Negative effect on young people, believing that the whole problem we have is climate change, an issue unstoppable. Although the entire morning in Argentina to become a National Park the process will run its course, the deterioration of the ozone hole will also continue even if the Argentines do not use more sprays and give up everything to help him train.
Instead ask that, why do not we start to plant the tree of door? I remember that Don Atahualpa Yupanqui, in the last conversations we had, one of the cultural crisis that saw most serious in Argentina, said: "I worry that I talk to young people, and I do not know the name of the tree they have in door of his house, and if I talk to a civilian, not known around the tree growing near his ranch. This is serious, because we will end up happening like that English prince who one day asked where they came from apples and the fruit `contestó'de.
This meditation, simple, compatriot, Don Ata eloquent, I think is very applicable to what we are about to happen. We are locked in cities believe that ecological problems are to be stuck away in the arroyo Maldonado and there is smog in the city of Buenos Aires. However there is a country that is plain, which is mountain, which is forest, which is not a virgin.
We usually say, from the political discourse about the inexhaustible natural resources we have. Not so, Argentina is a girl
outrage-is just that idea of \u200b\u200bthe virgin-Argentina, yet has space for something that is a luxury. Make a planning and a land use model. In that sense, a forestry law is the last chance for a bio-ecological land planning, which need not involve forests alone as some believe. You must also define what we will sacrifice pasture, what we do through and what use we will protect at all costs. The same with reference to the aquatic environment, what we sacrifice, to which we are going to make an intermediate use, and what we will protect at all costs. These are the famous red, yellow and green which proposes the regulation of the law and are generating so much controversy and debate because it seems they are not well understood, even by that have to do the job. Vos
you referred to climate change, do you think possible that the degradation process continues regardless of what we do? Do you think this climate change in your personal opinion is a consequence of being human or is a natural evolution that has occurred?
Look, I'm not at all an expert in the matter, do not even know enough about this subject. My perception is that to talk of real change requires lengthy periods of analysis that are not being respected in the mass distribution that is becoming the problem. We are claiming, on the scale of a human life is nothing in evolution, saying "the climate is more subtropical in Buenos Aires." I, for example, when I was young I walked three blocks from my house to my school here in Martinez, and saw in the quarry, because she had green beds in the streets, frosts, I do not see years ago.
subtropicalización That is a northeastern Buenos Aires seems obvious. Advanced noticed of fauna and flora of the coast of Buenos Aires. That is the best signal, now how far that process is natural or not? Why forest grows above the ruins of the Jesuit? Missions
If tomorrow was abandoned by the missionaries, would be covered through the jungle, even fields. The forest is a natural progression period, is in a period of expansion, a result of the subtropicalización. Now if by a warming of only human or natural origin, I am inclined to say that is natural with any human impact. The man appears to aggravate the trend, if you will, but I think the process is more profound. The process may involve a change in another level and we will be to witness that we are playing, take care of or intuit. Because the truth is that there is much to say by palynologists-those who study fossil pollen, plant, and we can say that the arid steppe dry and was once a forest, a garden as big as those we see against the Cordilleras. Then came something called the Andes and the humid winds interrupted, the logs are dried, some were sunk in silica and returned with upward movement, and are now petrified forest. But that was a forest. Today we are studying the mice displayed steppe and forest. Have they gone mad or are the relic of an ancient past distribution?.
not really know all of our nature and not see the funds allocated to learning. If I study an endangered species often need to use funds from international NGOs. Is not set as a national priority to study what extinguished. Nor is it clear that we must protect the endemic, it is not known what it is endemic. The pandemic is what is unique in the world of Argentina.
The word endemic and is inherently difficult, it is understood by decision-makers and leaders.
Just like that. The word itself, which is endemic means exclusively of a place. May be unique in a country, a province, region.
Argentina is among the mega-diversity countries, as are Ecuador, Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. Therefore, we will not receive funds for diversity. But where the Argentina match is for the endemics. A country that has a rich geological history last: advances of glaciers, a plain that was equal to the steppe when the ice advanced almost to the Black River and was a jungle missionary and the fields north of Corrientes and then was again forest. These fluctuations were creating situations of isolation and evolution in isolation, with many variables at play.
Thus, a saw that one can see in San Juan in the middle of a sea of \u200b\u200bcreosote bush, not water, as is the Sierra de Pie de Palo, most famous for there died Deceased Correa-lizard engine that has only in the world and probably an amphibian, is a center of endemism. O Somuncurá plateau in Black River, it was an island that once held Tues surrounding it, again had a shrubland that surrounded it, is an evolving world is isolated and distinct species. In these places converge plants, amphibians, reptiles, birds, elephants-are tiny and are not notable species, huge, not too colorful, "but are valuable for the protection of biodiversity.
When in Rio, the '92 Eco, Argentina signed the Global Biodiversity Convention, a step that gave the United States - and was very challenged by that, "pledged to protect all life forms. Now if no resources to protect all that is a magnanimous task, " why not face priorities?.
What we prioritize?. What will be, or what is in danger of extinction. It is agreed internationally and nationally. Another advantage that I can mention is that when I did the first book "to be", I had to work more with the international red lists. Today we have national red lists, least of all quadrupeds, and begins to have drafts of the plants and fish. Actually the picture in that sense is better understood, and as one hand we must protect what is going on the other hand we must protect what is unique, which no other country will come to protect because it is only argentino. Ahora estas especies están a la buena de Dios, sobre todo una de ellas donde acabamos de hacer un emprendimiento minero, el Río Gualcamayo en San Juan.
¿Cuál es la especie?
El Telmatobius contrerasi, una ranita que la colectó el profesor Julio Contreras en la década del 70, en el cerro Madrid, en el valle del río Gualcamayo, al norte de San Juan. Se la llevó al doctor José Miguel Cei, un herpetólogo ítalo-argentino, notabilísimo, y es la más austral de las especies del género Telmatobius, el género al que pertenecen las famosas ranas del Titicaca, un grupo netamente andino que termina su distribución en el norte de San Juan con esa species. Well, this is not heard anyone even have a major conflict and clashes of environmentalists believe that in La Rioja, with people exploiting this mine.
What is mining?
I do not know the name, if not tell, but have transcended mails. The funny thing is that all emails the problem was a confrontation and not the reason for the conflict. So on the page "www.losquesevan.com" becomes a comment of attention and now spread across San Juan on my recent trip: "Look, now River Valley is visible from afar Gualcamayo covered by a column up dust, for mining, but not the frog, no one talks about Frog did anyone reunited? Is it extinct? Are not they extinct? What compensatory reserves left that venture? ".
That's where entrepreneurship is serious. I would not venture against a priori, but what I want is that this project would serve to biologists from San Juan, Cordoba and Mendoza, or neighboring provinces to come, to check the status of this species and make technical recommendations that will surely end up in the creation of a reservation. A book that already proposed in the '90s when there was no news of a mine. It is not we discovered the frog to stop mining, not. frog was there. That is why Argentina with those centers of endemism is positioned and matched their lack of mega-biodiversity. It is necessary that we know, spread it, so we are clear and requires knowledge. Learn the names of these species. So long was the last reissue of "to be" because we intended to put there name at least, all vertebrate species that have this position not only threatened, but also of endemism, which is little known and little understood. So we should add a whole took the name of "Others who leave."
sometimes not clear in the levels of those who have to manage these resources. Recall that Argentina is a federal country and on natural resources are the primary mandate, the provinces.
Actually Argentina is not a country, like you said, megabiológico, but has a very special feature is that it is placed vertically on the map, ranging from subtropical to Antarctica, or has many ecoregions What think of that?
This is another great advantage of Argentina. Not megabiológico in round numbers, which does not mean that there is rich in contrast and diversity. Maybe we can define it as a land of contrasts. Megabiodiversity these countries have variations of subtropical forests, but can you show the contrast between the polar ice and the highlands, or between forest and jungle, or between the Dry and Humid Chaco Chaco, two worlds with two different pulses that are there with the same name as Chaco, but have little to do with each other.
This is what generates the major attractions that Argentina has, cultural diversity, so it is so complex national identity. I had the privilege of addressing this issue with Don Ata (Atahualpa Yupanqui), and he said, "that achieves the Argentine will dominate the three mysteries." He says he had taught Ricardo Rojas. "The mystery of the desert, the mystery of the jungle and the mystery of the mountain." That was a very interesting cultural and ecological definition for your time. I mentioned it and he said: "Look, I was green and did not know." What was missing there was the mystery southern denied that he was as yet, but adding these four mysteries are four ways of being, of seeing things, that we find it hard to take, so it is very difficult also national understanding. It is easier to find good knowledge of what happens in the jungle, or what happens in the Ibera, or what happens in the steppe or in the woods. But one with a picture which can tell a President of the Nation, this is what to do in Tartagal, here's what to do with conflict in the trash, here's what to do with the theme of the sea coast or the Staten Island. But still discussing what to do when they are the clear progress of oil exploration in Britain. Not much more to discuss but there you make a world heritage site and natural heritage. Drake went there, spent Byron, Bove spent Piedrabuena history are hovering shipwrecks on its shores, is the old jail. But mostly there is a mouse that is discussed is, "if it is endemic or exclusive, and sea otters are the latest and the last great sea lions fur seal, and the large penguin colony yellow eyebrow penguin, a species now endangered, and perhaps the king penguin.
For Argentina, are in the Falklands and in Staten Island. So what else are we going to be thinking to declare that a reservation as God intended. It is already beginning to be required also for tourism. If you are not armed for this activity can be fatal. I always remember when I came to the island with a book by the famous naturalist Natalie Goodall, who said, among other things: "The island is so fragile that we have returned to a place to spend a year are the mark of our footsteps the previous year. " It's all a carpet of mosses and lichens as intricate and fragile and do not recover from the human footprint. Perhaps why no land mammals on the island.
We must understand these "details" to manage the resource properly. But if we, far from understood, we can not not study because there are no books to speak of the Malvinas, the South Georgias. After the war (1982), regardless of whether it was good or bad, not be an Argentine in Castilian informed what the natural history of these islands, I think my contribution of 2005 is one of the few.
The Georgia is a place that we know Animal Planet more than anything else. But if you want to read, study, see there, that there is, seem to know nothing about it. And that too, spread in a book, is yet to be sovereign.
final thought what I'd like to say?
what I was thinking of contrasts, which really is a land of Argentina, in that sense, blessed. That is on one hand a positive thing. This wealth of stunning contrast of things so difficult to understand how they can be a vicuna, a right whale and jaguar, and I assure you different efforts and strategies are very different. The downside is that dazed and frightened, as frightened many people refuse to have that overview and think you have to forcibly enter in a timely temita that after ends up not bringing the desired effect and generates a widespread reluctance.
I think I can say as a final message that if you give me a choice of all the problems, the transformation of natural environment is the gravest. In general people believe that animals go extinct because the hunt, though as with the environment the species survives even hunted. The most serious problem for conservation is the transformation of the environment with all its variants. Hunting in some cases was severe, but were very specific cases. Pollution does not help.
However the big problem today is the dispersion of forces and wills. I think it is a problem of conservation, but a national problem. Define and conduct a real project where note that this is state policy. Francisco Moreno it was clear, Eduardo Ladislao Holmberg also was clear, the same germ Burmeister who came from Germany it was clear, so we left everything behind and came to an invitation extended to him nothing less than Sarmiento, to take charge Natural Science Museum. Of that generation of the eighties have to recover that spirit and return to what we were, a landmark in Latin American country with a model of National Parks after the U.S. and Canada, was third in America, who was born and remains a source of admiration. It remains the backbone of a system of reserves that are not finished to create. That everything is done is an idea that definitely needs to be deleted because it is false that it is protected what was protected and the rest goes to slaughter. No, there is still much to protect, but to agree that, where, when, how and what are the nuances, we must get together and talk and listen and not rely on the say-as missionaries, "he says." "He says that" it is very dangerous, because I was told that such a person, than another are saying or thinking this or that way. But do not read, do not interview them, do not listen and not give you the chance to explain.
In short, today sounds almost prehistoric development versus conservation dichotomy. Conservation, properly understood, by definition, supports the development. Yes, good development. With people who know what is treading ground, who knows, who understands and knows why the mountain is named. What did Grandpa?, As Atahualpa said, when speaking of the Indian to set foot on this land before, what dream? What beliefs did?, All it does to our identity as it slowly lost in a country where competition is a provincial capital seem to Buenos Aires, with its chain of country clubs around it. That seems to be the model without understanding that we can generate a model for the Chaco, a model for Puna, a model of Patagonia, where for example there are different weather elements that are undeniable.
We can not deny the issue of wind in Patagonia, we can not deny the issue of sun in the Puna and, well, all that requires us to be resourceful and show that if we ever called Linnaeus, when he devoted himself to classify bugs and plants, more like a bug to scare several ladies of the time, "Homo sapiens, was not mistaken, the man put us wise. He probably thought he had the ability to organize and find the solutions. For man damage done, kills man at a time when the whales to do with their beards bras for the collar-so called whale-but also after the end replaced by plastic and looking for alternatives. Today we are eliminating laughing sound like a being as wonderful as the dinosaurs, one even bigger than dinosaurs, like the blue whale, but not so press-perhaps for lack of Jurassic Park Spielberg, follows trying to live with us this animal, 32 meters long.
I think we have to learn the Argentine is still time to reorganize a lot of issues through new territory, not going to deny people, but by adding it actively and with a positive message, a message that brings solutions. They say that Charles De Gaulle, President of France, attended with a sign in the hall, in the waiting room, to read those who came to his office: "If you do not bring me the solution is already part of the problem."
Well, that's what we have to learn the ambientlistas. When we go to the problem, learn to manage well the possible solution to the complaint did not become perpetual. My experience is that if we become an army of willful people saying "let's change things, rather than a group of frightened people who think it is a process that is beyond us, we is overwhelming, when I think not. So, a final reflection, we fight to get together and finding solutions, messing around in the serious analysis of the situation, but at some point say "stop mourn for half empty and we will start seeing the glass half full well. "
Source: E24n
his books ...
Those who leave. Volume 1. Environmental problems. Amphibians and Reptiles ">
