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Professor E.O. Wilson in the Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique. [Photo: Piotr Naskrecki]
The Gorongosa Project team members celebrate the life and legacy of Professor Edward O.Wilson, the American biologist, who died on Sunday, December 26, 2021 at 92 years of age. Considered the most important naturalist since Charles Darwin, he was an inspiring light in the restoration of Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique.
Ed, as he asked to be called himself, was the University Research Professor of Entomology at Harvard University, USA and the world’s leading authority on ants. He has written 30 books and over 300 scientific articles, and has won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction on two occasions. Along with a long list of other important awards and honours, he also received the United States of America National Medal of Science.
Professor Wilson’s legacy in science and conservation is immense. He discovered fundamental concepts that became the basis of entirely new fields, including Sociobiology and Island Biogeography. The latter formalized the only true law in ecology and provided a theoretical basis for the field of conservation biology. Together with his friend Thomas Lovejoy, he introduced the world to the term “biodiversity”, which is now a familiar word.
In his later years, Edward O. Wilson continued to devote himself to educating the world about human nature and the human condition, and to preserving the biological diversity he held dear. It was this critical nature conservation mission that first brought him to Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, in 2011.
Ed visited Gorongosa three times between 2011 and 2014 and became a beacon for the Gorongosa Restoration Project. In addition to conducting his own field research on ants in the Park. He advised the science and conservation teams as they developed restoration plans and objectives.
He was the consultant in the creation of the science laboratory, which was named in his honour “The E.O. Wilson of Biodiversity”. It’s not just a place to conduct biological research in a remote African natural landscape but the laboratory where a whole new generation of Mozambican conservation leaders and Ed’s academic descendants are being trained.
One of the functions of the Laboratory is to train the next generation of Mozambican scientists in the Park and send them to universities to obtain advanced degrees. Young people, from neighbouring communities to the Park or from technical schools in the region, receive total or partial financial assistance from the Laboratory and are attending universities and institutes for careers as veterinarians, ecologists and laboratory technicians. Some Mozambican researchers and students also received support from the Wilson Foundation.
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