INTERVIEWS (V)

By José Manuel Ferro Veiga

In the book I incorporate interviews ((2002-2004) carried out with relevant figures of Spanish and world society, who talk about topics as diverse as: loneliness, sports, food security, biodiversity, economy, social integration, Hope, etc…. Interviews must be understood in their context and time taken.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781716629211

Book preview

INTERVIEWS (VI)

INDEX

INTRODUCTION

INTERVIEW 1: Jordi Bascompte, ecologist and researcher at the Doñana Biological Station

INTERVIEW 2: Manuela Márquez, director of the Madrid Celiac Association

INTERVIEW 3: Carlos Iglesias, Secretary General of the Spanish Association of Distributors and Publishers of Entertainment Software (ADESE

INTERVIEW 4: Ricardo Aguilar / Director of Research and Projects of Oceana in Europe

INTERVIEW 5: Jesús Madrid / President of the Telephone of Hope

INTERVIEW 6: Juan Antonio Usparitza / President of the Road Aid Association (DYA

INTERVIEW 7: Jaume Mor / Spokesperson for Global Humanitaria

INTERVIEW 8: Liliane Spendeler / Head of Friends of the Earth

INTERVIEW 9: Lucía Feu / President of Arquitectos Sin Fronteras

INTERVIEW 10: Adelaida Fisas Armengol / President of the Spanish Federation of Parents of Children with Cancer

INTERVIEW 11: María Artola / Director of the Biodiversity Foundation

INTERVIEW 12: Josep Maria Bonmatí, president of AECOC

INTERVIEW 13: Sergio Fernández. Environmental consultant

INTERVIEW 14: Carlos Díaz Romero, Professor of Nutrition and Bromatology at the University of La Laguna

INTERVIEW 15: Hania Zlotnik / Director of the UN Population Division

INTERVIEW 16: Mari Carmen Gallastegui / Professor of Economics at the UPV

INTERVIEW 17: Antonio Cendrero. Expert in natural disasters from the University of Cantabria

DEVELOPING

INTRODUCTION

The chances of success in any interview increase if you prepare the most frequently asked questions in advance and provide the right answers. This implies having clear and summarized the strengths and a strategy to reduce weaknesses, the interview, which lasts approximately 30 minutes, you must adopt a positive, natural, polite and open attitude. The interviewer will manage and direct the meeting, in addition to the times and the questions.

In the book, I incorporate interviews with relevant figures of Spanish and world society, who talk about topics as diverse as: loneliness, work, cinema, social networks, happiness, social integration, prisons, etc ... Interviews must be understood in its context and time taken.

INTERVIEW 1: Jordi Bascompte, ecologist and researcher at the Doñana Biological Station

That the overexploitation of fishery resources has its negative consequences is not new. Nor is it that overfishing of one species ends up affecting others, although a priori it is not known exactly which ones or in what period of time. What is new is the description of a tropical marine food web that describes and makes it possible to foresee, even at a theoretical level, these consequences.

This descriptive task has been carried out by the team led by Jordi Bascompte, ecologist and researcher at the Doñana Biological Station. In this work, published in the prestigious magazineProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the expert analyzes the network of relationships between species in the community and makes it possible to understand not only how they interact but also how a disturbance such as overfishing ends up spreading to other species.

Can you describe your work briefly?

What we have done is assemble a coral reef community and study which species interact with which species. We have assigned a weight to each interaction with a prey and a predator that represents the influence that predators have on each of their prey. We have seen two things. A first is that the structure of the food web is assembled in such a way as to reduce the potential for domino effects, or the transmission of disturbances throughout the entire web. This is because the combinations of strong interactions in two consecutive links in a food chain are less than expected.

What does that mean?

That the spread of shocks is minimized, which is good news. However, that does not prevent overfishing from continuing to affect and spread to other species. And there is bad news.

What is it…

That most of the exploited species in that community, specifically 10 shark species, are keystone species. They are in more than half of the food chains with combinations of strong interactions from that community, they are a very important part of the community and the fishing pressure that affects them ends up affecting many more species.

How many species and interactions are we talking about?

Most of the species exploited in the community are key species and the fishing pressure that affects them ends up affecting many more species

Of 250 species that maintain more than 3,300 interactions between them. The 10 shark species we referred to earlier and that are among the most exploited control a very large number of these interactions. They are found in almost half of the food chains with very strong combinations.

Is there a graphical way to explain how it affects?

For example, a decrease in the number of sharks leads to an increase in the number of fish that are usually their prey, which in turn, as the number increases, will cause a decrease in the number of herbivorous fish that feed on algae. . The decline of the latter, in turn, causes the algae to increase, which in turn compete for space with coral reefs. These, finally, end up decreasing. It is thus a cascading effect, since one does not expect, in principle, that the shark affects the algae.

I guess the increase in algae and the decrease in coral reefs end up reverting back to the community.

Yes, and it is also something that is already being seen. There is a radical change in coral ecosystems for various reasons, such as pollution and overfishing. The consequence is the impoverishment of biodiversity. Coral reefs are very complex systems. The increase in algae and the decrease in corals degrades and impoverishes the ecosystem. That transition is already happening now and very quickly.

FAO recently warned of the need to conserve biodiversity for agriculture.

The fishing pressure that affects sharks ends up affecting many more species One of the most intense lines of work currently in ecology is precisely to see the relationship between biodiversity and what are called the services of the system. And not for ethical or aesthetic reasons but because we now know that the most diverse ecosystems are more resistant to foreign species, they are more productive and more stable.

For example.

In the event of drought, as there is complementarity between the crops, if one does not succeed, there will be another that does, so the amount of production is offset. If a parasite affects one species, other plants will remain. On the other hand, mass farming is more risky, it can have big losses. It is like the bag; the best way not to lose everything and make a profit is to diversify. Now there are organic crops that bet on that diversity.

A few months ago some research warned that industrial agriculture was making species of butterflies and birds disappear.

The interactions between plants and animals that pollinate them or disperse their seeds are very important because they have been one of the great engines for the generation of diversity. And they are related to agriculture because it is the interaction between plants and