In the 1960s, Chile was home for Francesco di Castri, and he maintained close links with that country, and with the hispanophone world, throughout his life. From 1961 to 1969, he was Professor of Ecological Sciences and Director of the Institute of Animal Production at the University of Santiago, and then the founding Director of the Institute of Ecology at the Austral University of Valdivia. During his time in Chile, he combined research on the ecology of soil organisms with comparative ecological studies on the structure and functioning on Mediterranean-climate ecosystems in Chile and California within the framework of the International Biological Programme (IBP).
It was during this period that di Castri became associated with UNESCO. He directed the first UNESCO Latin American Regional Course on Soil Biology in Santiago in 1965. He then contributed substantively to several international symposia organized within the Natural Resources Research Programme, such as those on the ecology of the sub-arctic zones (Helsinki, 1966) and methods of study in soil ecology (Paris, 1967).
In 1971, he was appointed by UNESCO as the Secretary of the International Coordinating Council for the Programme on Man and the Biosphere (MAB), later taking on the functions of founding director of the Division of Ecological Sciences on its creation in 1974. From November 1971 to January 1984, he shaped and directed what came to be considered as one of UNESCO’s principal contributions in promoting international cooperation on environmental issues. He tended MAB through its phases of international and regional planning and the launching of a first generation of field activities. With Michel Batisse, he nurtured the birth and development of the biosphere reserve concept and the designation of the early biosphere reserves. He made possible the implementation of the objectives of an almost wildly ambitious undertaking – the aims no less than:
- to develop the basis within the natural and social sciences for the rational use and conservation of the resources of the biosphere;
- to improve the global relationship between man and the environment;
- to predict the consequences of today’s actions on tomorrow’s world and thereby to increase man’s ability to manage efficiently the natural resources of the biosphere”.
To borrow a phrase from his fellow countryman, Valerio Giacomini, “this was a challenge that borders on the limits of the possible”.
In the late 1970s and 1980s, the Division of Ecological Sciences provided the Secretariat of the “natural part” of the World Heritage Convention. Under di Castri’s directorship, this Convention began its operations, laying the foundation of what is today one of UNESCO’s most successful and best known legal instruments.
In 1981, di Castri was centrally involved in planning and convening a scientific conference, organized jointly by UNESCO and ICSU, aimed at taking stock of what had been achieved over the first ten years of MAB. Shortcomings as well as accomplishments were identified. Associated with the conference was the prototype of a 36-poster exhibit ‘Ecology in Action’ that was later produced in multiple copies in a score of languages, and widely considered as the one of the most significant projects to be carried out within the framework of MAB.
A conclusion of this stocktaking exercise was that the MAB Programme had achieved a fair measure of success, reflected in quantitative terms such as the number of countries, field projects and individual scientists taking part, and the important multiplier effect of the resources invested by UNESCO in the programme. More important were more qualitative measures of success, such as the actual results of testing, at field level, of new approaches to problem-oriented research on complex problems of land use and resource management. But what was implicit, not explicit in the assessment, was the role of di Castri in promoting a certain type of international cooperation – one that recognizes the universality of science but also the diversity of cultures and the geopolitical realities of the day. Whatever achievements the MAB Programme can claim owe not a little to the charisma, innovation and drive of its founding director, Francesco di Castri.
In the early 1980s, while still with UNESCO, Francesco di Castri undertook a review for the French Government of the state of ecology in France. Involvement in that process was one of the factors that contributed to his returning to academic life in early 1984, when he left UNESCO to become Director of Research within the French National Institute for Scientific Research (CNRS). There, he headed the prestigious ecological research institute in Montpellier, and orchestrated its transformation into what became the Centre for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology (CEFE).
Francesco di Castri returned to UNESCO in 1990, when he was invited by the Director-General to be the founding Coordinator of the Bureau for Coordination of Environmental Programmes, responsible for taking in hand the Organization’s contributions to the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio and its immediate follow-up. He remained in this post until his retirement from UNESCO in December 1992, when he returned to CNRS-CEFE as Emeritus Director. From 1993 to 1998 he chaired the UNESCO Committee on the Follow-up to UNCED.
During his career, Francesco di Castri was gainfully employed in three main ways: as a university professor in Chile, as a promoter of international scientific cooperation within a United Nations institution based in Paris, and as a director of a national research institute in France. Over a period of four-and-a-half decades, he was closely involved in several of the principal international scientific programmes on the environment, from the IBP and MAB to the planning of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) in the mid-1980s and the launching of DIVERSITAS in the early 1990s. He was among the scientists invited to take part in the planning of the UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm in 1972, and played a key role in mobilizing the participation of environmental scientists from developing countries.
Over this period, he was closely involved in the work of the international scientific community, particularly through the ICSU family (now, the International Council for Science). Among other honorary positions, he was a long-time member of the Executive Committee of the International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS). He was elected IUBS Secretary General in 1988 at the IUBS General Assembly in Canberra, then as IUBS President at the following General Assembly in Amsterdam in 1991 till 1994 and served on the IUBS Board as immediate Past President from 1994 to 1997. In September 1994, he chaired the IUBS UNESCO Conference “Biodiversity, Science and Development towards a new partnership”. He was the first Vice President and one of the founding fathers of the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) from 1969 to 1972, then again a member of the Executive Committee of SCOPE from 1985 to 1995, and President of SCOPE from 1988 to 1992. During the 80’ and 90’, he also led several projects of SCOPE, and most recently the project on Environment in the Global Information Society.
Following his return to CEFE-Montpellier in 1993, he became increasingly involved in the rethinking and revamping of teaching and learning programmes at graduate and post-graduate levels, in such fields as land use planning and resource management. His research interests turned towards better understanding linkages between ecology and economic globalization. Increased contacts with the industrial-production sector reflected his long-held conviction that scientists and environmentalists should seek to understand the motivations and workings of business, as a means of bringing influence to bear on those whose actions have such an enormous impact on the environment. Cooperation with groups such as the Total Foundation was reflected in assessments of the interfaces between tourism, information and biodiversity, among others. Work with local communities included that with the population of Easter Island on taking advantage of modern communication technologies in exploring options for their future. These activities by Francesco di Castri were yet another demonstration of his career-long concern to make science contribute to sustainable development in a practical manner. Otherwise, he was often an outspoken critic of misrepresentations of the concept of sustainable development by scientists and policy-makers alike.
Francesco di Castri was a prolific writer, with over 20 books to his name as author, coauthor, or coeditor. He also authored or coauthored over 350 scientific and popular articles, monographs and book chapters. Subjects addressed included quantitative soil biology, information theory, structure of animal communities from the tropics to Antarctica, convergence of Mediterranean ecosystems, biogeography and biodiversity, strategies and constraints for natural resources development, organization of international interdisciplinary research on environmental issues, increasing the credibility of ecological research, biological complexity, effects of globalization on the environment and society. Among honours and distinctions, he was awarded the Doctor of Philosophy, honoris causa, by the University of Kuopio (Finland) in 1983. He was a member of the Academies of Sciences of Italy and Russia, and Commander of Order of the Italian Republic.
Throughout much of his career, di Castri was centrally involved in bringing together scientists from different disciplines, of both the natural and social sciences, to conduct problem oriented research on resource management and man-environment interactions. Underpinning this work was his conviction that the diversity of natural and socio-economic situations that exist in the world provides a basis and not an obstacle for meaningful scientific cooperation, and that shared responsibilities and respect for different cultures should be the cornerstones of international cooperation. He felt strongly that promotion of innovative responses to new and complex problems implies acceptance of the possibility of failure. He had a lifelong interest in testing new ways of cementing the participation of scientists, planners and local people in particular field projects, and of popularizing and diffusing information on the environment. He eschewed dogma and rhetoric in favor of concrete actions.
As an individual, di Castri was a realistic optimist. An optimist in that he subscribed to the idea that ecology is a science associated with opportunity and hope rather than with doom and despair. He was not one of those who preach that environmental doomsday is nigh. Rather, he emphasized the role of science in contributing to positive goals, such as putting resource use on a more sustainable basis. A realist in that he had a very acute sense of what is possible and what is not.
Francesco di Castri was a four-language polyglot, esteemed by those in government and those in science, worldwide. He was a noble, complex and highly erudite person, in the tradition of his native city. He mixed passions for the cinema, football and linguistics similarly to his near contemporary Umberto Eco. He was a skilled and subtle debater, with a fine sense of irony and metaphor… highly appreciated by those who were not in his line of fire. He was an exceptional motivator of those around him, a man of imagination and foresight, of courage and rigour. He left his mark. He will be missed and remembered by many. |
