Schubert Prize 2021
Laureate Category 2
For exceptional achievements in practical nature conservation. The Award is endowed with 15 000 Euros.
Silvana Campello and George Georgiadis
In 1996, while looking for natural areas to protect in Brazil’s Amazon, two scientists, Silvana Campello and George Georgiadis, visited the Cantão ecosystem for the first time. They soon realized that here, the populations of fish, aquatic reptiles, birds, giant otters, caimans, and jaguars were very high when compared to average Amazonian numbers. After this trip, they returned to Cantão several times, eventually becoming instrumental contributors to the establishment of Cantão State Park two years later. In 2010, the couple founded an NGO dedicated to research and nature conservation in the Cantão protected area called Instituto Araguaia.
Thanks to their efforts, Cantão State Park is now considered to be one of Brazil's most important nature reserves, where a growing population of giant otters has full protection, the only place in the country where this is the case. Here, in 2014, the Cantão river dolphins were classified as a separate
species, now called the Araguaia river dolphin. Also, coordinated work with local communities has reduced hunting and illegal fishing in the protected area.
It is thanks to Silvana Campello and George Georgiadis's continuous efforts that giant otters and river dolphins continue to show stable populations and that local support for their NGO's important work in protecting the Cantão ecosystem remains, despite the currently difficult political situation in Brazil.
© Silvana Campello & George Georgiadis
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