Within the cycle of annual lectures on conservation biology, initiated by Tour du Valat in order to highlight the work on waterbirds conservation of Heinz Hafner, this year was the occasion to welcome David Grémillet, Senior Researcher at CEFE-CNRS Montpellier and Research Associate at the University of Cape Town, on 14 November 2022.
Abstract:
The global environmental crisis is leading to high levels of eco-anxiety, and ultimately to eco-grief. This state of mourning upon nature loss affects the moral of ecologists and of the public, and may jeopardize our capacity to stand up for conservation. In this context, environmental storytelling and nature writing may provide a new narrative, transforming mourning into renewed marveling at wild creatures, empathy with the natural world, and activism.
By revisiting 30 years of work as a seabird ecologist from the Arctic to the Southern Ocean and metropolitan France, I will explore the complex interfaces between my curiosity for the ecophysiology marine birds, my involvement for their conservation in the context of global warming and overfishing, and my recent experimentations with nature writing and popular science.
David Grémillet is a biological oceanographer with a keen interest for seabird ecophysiology and animal tracking technologies. His work aims at understanding seabird responses to global changes and at enhancing marine conservation strategies. After a PhD at GEOMAR in Kiel (Germany) and a Marie Curie Post Doc with NERC-CEH in Banchory (Scotland), he joined CNRS in 1999. He is currently CNRS senior researcher at the Montpellier Centre for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology (CEFE) and research associate at the University of Cape Town.
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