2008/04/21

Miguel Delibes de Castro talks about 'Evolutionism and nature conservation' in the 'Darwin and Wallace' cycle

Miguel Delibes de Castro, a research lecturer with the CSIC (Supreme Council for Scientific Research) at the Doñana Biological Station and winner of the National Award 2005, gave a talk on 'Evolutionism and nature conservation' on 17 April in Bilbao, within the framework of the cycle of talks entitled 'Darwin and Wallace, 150 years of discovering evolution', organised by CIC bioGUNE in collaboration with the British Council and the BBVA Foundation.

During his talk, Delibes de Castro drew attention to the first initiatives aimed at conducting scientific research into environmental problems which arose during the course of the 20th century, culminating in 1980 with the creation of 'Conservation Biology', a new combination discipline which aims to find solutions to the 'biodiversity crisis'.

Delibes de Castro believes that biodiversity, which is the result of millions of the years of evolution, should be considered part of mankind's collective heritage, and that as such, deserves to be studied scientifically, used rationally and conserved for future generations. He also highlighted the current biodiversity crisis, which shows extinction rates probably as high as during other major crises that occurred in the distant past. He told the audience that estimates indicate that between 10,000 and 50,000 species are currently being extinguished every year, and he mentioned Edward O. Wilson, who has estimated that if things continue at this rate, by the middle of this century half of all existing biodiversity will be lost.