At risk of disappearing - The Instituto de Ciencias Naturales and its legacy (1937-2005)

An open letter to colleagues -from the Professors of the Instituto de Ciencias Naturales of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia- in reaction to the immanent risk of the disappearance of the Instituto owing to new policies adopted by the central administration of the Universidad Bogota (Colombia), April 1, 2005.

The Instituto de Ciencias Naturales of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia finds itself in grave risk of being eliminated. The Institute has had a large impact on the study and analysis of the biodiversity of Colombia, one of the planet's most diverse countries. The Institute is the legal depository of biological and archeological vouchers of this richness. The collections of the Institute include the Colombian National Herbarium (COL) -the major herbarium in Colombia and one of the largest in Latin America- the zoological collections -with the most complete samples, in the world, of the Colombian diversity of amphibians, birds, crabs, fishes, insects, mammals, reptiles, spiders, and terrestrial snails- and the paleoecological collections, which document past use of the ecosystems by aboriginal Americans.

The grave threat emerging for the Instituto de Ciencias Naturales, custodian of this entire heritage during nearly 70 years, stems from the fact that the central administration of the University is engaged in its disarticulation by eliminating or reassigning all the staff dedicated to the Institute. This proposed action means that the researchers currently engaged in the generation of knowledge, the formation of new generations of biodiversity researchers, the curation and enrichment of the approximately 850,000 specimens, see the harmonic development of their activities and their organizational structure is effectively at an end.

In practice, this will lead to the gradual deterioration and the inevitable loss of information associated with the collections and in only a few years the complete loss of all that has accumulated in 70 years. Such a loss will seriously impair the capacity of the country to respond to sustainable development. A country cannot develop if its intellectual base (knowledge of its biota) depends principally upon ignorance of those natural resources.

Given this situation, we respectfully appeal to our colleagues within the country and across the world to offer us your assistance in trying to convince the actual administrators of this University that the maintenance of a staff consisting of permanent professors is the only means of guaranteeing the continuity of efforts to document the biodiversity of a megadiverse country such as Colombia and to enrich, curate, and study these collections for the benefit of the country.

Please, send a message to the Consejo Superior Universitario expressing your point of view about this administrative process and attempting to persuade the members of the Consejo of the magnitude of the consequences of their proposed action. With the help of many persons from diverse institutions, we hope to reverse this historical error.

The few minutes that you would need to invest in writing a message can save 70 years of dedication by many botanists, biologists, archaeologists, and zoologists. Thank you.

Please direct your message to:

Consejo Superior Universitario
Universidad Nacional de Colombia

Dra. Cecilia Maria Velez
Ministra de Educacion Nacional

Dr. Marco Palacios
Rector Universidad Nacional de Colombia

Dr. Ramon Fayad. Secretario
General Universidad Nacional de Colombia

Dr. Moises Wasserman
Decano Facultad de Ciencias. Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Sede Bogota)

Dra. Gloria A. Galeano
Directora Instituto de Ciencias Naturales.
Universidad Nacional de Colombia