The Viera y Clavijo Botanical Garden celebrated this Monday the 70th anniversary of the start-up of its facilities, with the presence of the president of the Cabildo, Antonio Morales, the Minister of the Environment, Inés Jiménez, and its director, Juli Caujapé, who recounted the trajectory -and future- of the enclosure devised in 1952 by the eminent botanist Eric Sventenius.
On October 10, 1910, he was born in the small town of skirotoday with about 70 inhabitants, the Swedish botanist Eric Ragnor Svensson Sventeniusthe same scientist who 42 years later, and 4,048 kilometers from his birthplace, created the Viera y Clavijo Botanical Garden.
Arriving in the Canary Islands after living in Catalonia, where he also left an indelible mark, he hatched the idea on the neighboring island of Tenerife of creating a space in which the boundless biodiversity of the islands, of which during his stay in the archipelago indexed dozens of species retaking forgotten investigations and undertaking new ones from the La Orotava Acclimatization Garden.
His project stumbled in Tenerife, and he was the then president of the Cabildo, Matias Vegathe one who accepted the bid, with a vision of the future that today, when it celebrates 70 years of its launch, sinks its roots in the canarian society and expands them as one of the great research centers of the macaronesian flora.
“Sventenius was a visionary who was 30 years ahead of the science of conservation biology”
The president of the Cabildo de Gran Canaria, Antonio Moralesthe Island Councilor for the Environment, Ines Jimenezand the director of Viera y Clavijo, Juli Caujapecelebrated an anniversary yesterday at the venue that was also a tribute to the most relevant personalities who have promoted the idea of Sventenius to the scientific excellenceas was, among others, its second director, David Bramwellpassed away on January 20.
Morales, in the Los Nenúfares squarepresided over by a seated statue of the founder of the garden, described Sventenius before the relatives and the workers of the center, as «a visionary who was almost 30 years ahead of the science of conservation biology and who knew how to perfectly understand the importance of the biodiversity of Gran Canaria”» without forgetting a David Bramwel who he blamed for his growing importance in the scientific field and to consolidate it as “an indisputable reference in the study of biodiversity of the islands.”
«The Canary Islands is one of the territories that suffers the most from the effects of climate change»
all that knowledge generation is, at this time, more relevant than ever, according to the head of the insular corporation, when the world lives in the midst of a process of climate change.
A time of inflection “that affects the Canary Islands in a very specific way, one of the territories that is suffering its effects most intensely”, as he said, and that has in the investigations of the enclosure one of the main tools for fight it from knowledge.
David Bramwell’s son asserts that the Tafira venue has an “increasingly relevant” future
Hence his defense of the concept eco-islandcoined by his government group in 2015, “a self-centered model, ecologically sustainable and socially fair”, which is based precisely on the scientists and researchers of the insular council of Environment to progress in their objectives and bequeath to future generations, as David Bramwell defended, “the moral right to inherit and live among the wonderful diversity of the planet».
deep draft
In his turn to speak, Juli Caujapé went back to the beginning of the project and the role played by the Council of Gran Canaria in assuming the challenge of the Swedish scientist, to highlight “that he knew how to understand the profound depth of the Sventenius project”, as well as the collaboration provided by the current island government group in a transversal way to provide the enclosure with new infrastructureas well as systems aimed at saving energy and water, «planning and developing numerous strategic workswhich the Garden urgently needed».
“The Viera y Clavijo garden is one of the main allies to the eco-island concept”
This without forgetting his main role, that of do science with the support and fluid contact with the most important country institutionsAs the Superior Council of Scientific Investigations and the two Canarian universities, and the Technological Institute of the Canary Islands among many other entities. To this was added a long list of people linked to the center, such as workers and scientists who during these 70 years have positioned the center as a vector of science.
After the speeches in the Plaza de Los Nenúfares, the procession moved to a corner in honor of David Bramwell, who displayed some of the species from his private garden. Your son, Alex Bramwell accepted the recognition with a speech in which he underlined the future “increasingly relevant” of the Viera y Clavijo.
Alex states that “the past is not a sacred place where everything was better. It’s easy to look back and remember only the golden dunes, but each era has its own challenges», to assert that «my father was a scientist and science does not care about nostalgia. It is something that it has in common with gardening. When a plant dies it leaves a big hole but it also creates the space for the green shoots take their placer».
The act ended in the laurisilva that surrounds the tomb of the scientist, among the murmur of the fayas and laurels
The event featured an intervention by Aguedo Marrerohead of the Department of Plant Systematics of the Botanical Garden, which dealt with the figure of Bramwell to finish off the birthday in the laurisilva that surrounds the tomb of Sventenius, a place of peace in which an intense minute of silence was lived wrapped in the grateful murmur of the fairies and laurels.
