Climate crisis challenges, in UB Margalef Year closing ceremony
“Now, humanity confronts the adventure and risk of expecting climate change and survive this change”, wrote the ecologist Ramon Margalef in his book Our Biosphere (1997). This prestigious ecologist, a model for many generations of scientists, was remembered in the closing ceremony of the Margalef Year at the University of Barcelona, on December 9, at 6 p.m. in the Aula Magna of the Historical Building. Titled "What to do now in front of the climate crisis?", the ceremony was presided over by the rector Joan Elias.
“Now, humanity confronts the adventure and risk of expecting climate change and survive this change”, wrote the ecologist Ramon Margalef in his book Our Biosphere (1997). This prestigious ecologist, a model for many generations of scientists, was remembered in the closing ceremony of the Margalef Year at the University of Barcelona, on December 9, at 6 p.m. in the Aula Magna of the Historical Building. Titled "What to do now in front of the climate crisis?", the ceremony was presided over by the rector Joan Elias.
The ceremony included the conference “La xarxa de la vida”, by Professor Jordi Bascompte, from the Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies of the University of Zurich (Switzerland). There was a roundtable with the conference speaker and head of the Catalan Office for Climate Change, Salvador Samitier; the manager of the Environment and Urban Services at the Barcelona City Council, Frederic Ximeno; lecturer Amèlia Tey, member of the Research Group on Moral Education of the UB, and Guillem Lloberas, student of the bachelor degree on Environmental Sciences of the UB and member of the Rebellion or Extinction group.
Within the frame of the Margalef Year, the UB and other institutions commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the birth of Ramon Margalef (1919-2004), one of the most cited scinetists in the field of ecology, with several activities. Margalef received the Gold Medal by the Catalan Government in 2003 and was the first scientist to be honoured with Saint Georgeʼs Cross in 1997, as well as one of the pioneers to develop a quality and competitive marine research.
Author of books which are a must to understand the functioning of nature -such as Ecología (1974) and Limnología (1983)-, Margalef was member of the Section of Biological Sciences in IEC and of the Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts of Barcelona, as well as corresponding member of the academies in Madrid, Seville and Galicia, and the National Academy of Sciences in the United States. Moreover, Margalef was awarded the honorary doctorate by the Universities of Laval (Canada), Aix-Marseille (France), Luján (Argentina) and Alicante (Spain).
Ramon Margalef, global ecologist
Director of the Fisheries Research Institute -now Institute of Marine Sciences- from 1965 to 1967, he won the first chair of Ecology in Spain in 1967. Margalef was lecturer at the Department of Ecology of the UB from 1967 to 1986, where he was later emeritus professor. During his scientific career, Margalef created a great school in the field of Ecology. Many generations of ecologists in Catalonia and in Spain have been trained by him, and great part of future chairs of Ecology of the universities in Spain are held by his disciples. Margalef is regarded as the world ecologist, with a great freedom of thought and generosity in ideas and time he dedicated to his students, who were always encouraged to look for everything nature offers -“with childrenʼs eyes”.
The CRAI Ramon Margalef Fund and Espai Margalef -an initiative coordinated by professors Mercè Durfort and Narcís Prat, together with the Biology CRAI Library- show the legacy of the Catalan ecologist. Regarding publications, there is the book called Ramon Margalef, ecólogo de la biosfera (Editions and Publications of the UB), by Narcís Prat, Joandomènec Ros and Francesc Peters, a scientific biology of the Catalan ecologist, sponsored by Agbar Foundation on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of his death.