Darwin’s last article

Madrid, September 2011

The Castilla del Oro Foundation, led by Richard Fifer-Carles and chaired by Cristobal Colon in Spain will develop an important social and environmental labor in the area of Cerro del Andevalo –Huelva.  In this line comes the concern about environmental issues, this time, we will tackle nature conservation.

The Famous naturist

On April 19, 1882, at 73 years of age, Darwin passed away in his beautiful country mansion in Down House.  Just two weeks before, on April 6, the weekly magazine Nature had published his last work, a note titled “About the dispersion of the fresh water bivalves”.  Darwin started by pointing out the great similarity that, in some very distant regions, have these and other species that live in fresh water, in contrast to the great differences exhibited by land animals, even though each river basin is independent from its neighbor.  The famous naturalist had already discussed this topic on the thirteenth chapter of the Origen of Species.  There, he attributed such similarities to changes on the ground levels which originated the rivers to pour into one another and, in the case of the fresh water mollusks, also to their dispersion by means of aquatic birds.  To this effect he told his experience with a duck he placed in an aquarium where there have been incubated mollusk eggs, without specifying the species.  A great number of young individuals stuck to the duck’s feet and survived there between 12 and 20 hours, time when, according to Darwin, the bird could have flown one thousand kilometers.

On his last note, Darwin made reference to another collaboration about the same topic already published four years before in Nature, on May the 30^th of 1878, this time under the title “Shell Movement”.  After the publication of the Origin of Species, Darwin received letters from all over the world and that note from 1878 made reference to one sent by an American called Arthur Gray, who offered a prove to corroborate his idea that fresh water clams could be transported by aquatic birds.  It was a drawing of the leg of a blue-winged teal (Anas Discors) hunted at a Massachusetts river with one of those clams stuck to a finger, in concrete a specimen of Unio Complanatus, possibly misidentified since this species is European.  In any case, the clam was alive when the teal was taken.

Meanwhile, the note from 1882 was referring to another letter that told something similar, only now the spreading agent wasn’t a bird, but a beetle, and the clam belonged to another great family of bivalves that, with the naiads, had colonized the fresh waters: the tiny spherical.  Darwin’s correspondent was this time a Walter Crick, a shoemaker from North Hampton fond of Natural Sciences and fossil collector.  About him should be said that he had a grandson called Francis Crick, whom he never met, who published in 1953 in Nature a two page article that awarded him the Nobel Prize on Medicine in 1962, which he shared with this collaborator James Watson, the topic was regarding the structure of DNA, molecule on which sequence are produced the mutations and which contains the intimate substratum of the individual variation and, thus, the evolution of the species by natural selection.

During his tour of made through five provinces of the country, Ruiz Pena said that he had the opportunity to appreciate the great variety and potential of the historical products, natural, and ethnographic of the interior region of the country.

Ruiz Pena who was accompanies by the international president of the Foundation Castilla del Oro of Spain, the Duke of Veragua, Cristóbal Colon of Carvajal, said that under the casual circumstances he met the directors of the organization who spoke about their interest of applying the model of integral development in the interior region of Panama, from which he decided to visit the country.

Entrepreneur Albert White, a member of the board of directors of the Chamber, said that before they heard favorable and unfavorable opinions, but after receiving the explanations from Petaquilla Gold’s specialists, they were able to draw their own conclusions by seeing what was happening and getting to know the details of the operation and the environmental protection systems they perform.

He stated that “although mining activity implies removing earth within green areas, the speed with which they are being reforested is remarkable, which is positive and we noticed”.  He said “what Petaquilla Gold is doing, under the vision of entrepreneur Richard Fifer Carles, is very positive and it reveals that what is said against this project is false, because the company is making a good job”.

La Castilla del Oro Foundation, disembarks with a new project in Spain, more precisely in Huelva (Cerro del Andevalo). For this reason we invite you to know the history, customs and life in general of the Old Europe, in which La Castilla del Oro Foundation assumes a new challenge; to develop what Engineer Richard Fifer – Carles, its promoter calls Social Responsibility of Second Generation.

“WATER, WATER… WE NEED A LOT OF FAUCETS,,,”

Located in the center of the province of Huelva (Spain), the region of Andevalo is a place of privilege.

They say an Italian minister, after World War II, claimed before his government: “Roads, roads… We need good roads…”.

In the Andevalo we could paraphrase this minister saying: “Water, water… We need more faucets with abundant water…”. Water is the determining factor for a certain economic growth and that this region stops being the place known as the cursed, depressed land… since it is a place of privilege.

In one of its municipality terms there is an agricultural exploitation that carried this idea to a happy ending more than thirty years ago and no one follows the example, nor other private investments, nor governmental initiatives that support any project to this respect, with the exception of the dam’s construction in 1989, dam of Chanza, in the limit of the El Granado municipality, with a surface of 2.239 Has, which capacity last August was of 249 Hm³.

Every year the voices of a misty Irrigation Community that seeks investment that will make these riches profitable and it seems like it’s swept away by the wind.

And our Andevalo still awaits, while the previously mentioned exploitation, the corn used for fodder, sprinkled with water from its dams, grows an incredible SEVEN CENTIMETERS PER DAY, reaching a height of four meters. Water and heat plus the manure-land make it possible.

El Andevalo could be the warehouse used for fodder in all Europe if the example was followed, since there is no climatic model in the entire Mediterranean shore that would allow this production.

Water can be stored; manure-land can be imported, BUT NOT THE WEATHER.

Ruiz Peña made ​​the announcement during a tour of St. Laurence fort in the company of the governor of the province of Colon, Pedro Rios, and the Duke of Veragua, Cristobal Colon de Carvajal, international president of the Castilla del Oro Foundation, an organization created under engineer Richard Fifer Carles’s vision.

Enthusiastically, Ruiz Peña, spoke of bringing the concept of workshop school from Spain, which means to rehabilitate by “rehabilitating people,” involving unemployed youth from Colón who, after training in a trade, work under professional supervision.

Entrepreneur Albert White stated that after learning how the mining plant works, he now “can speak positively of the Petaquilla project”.  He acknowledged that all human activity implies some risk and affectation to the environment.

He also stated that if indeed all human activity implies risks and it possibly impacts the environment, this company, under the leadership of engineer Richard Fifer-Carles, ahs a XXI century plant, where “there are protections, there is development, everything is installed and with enough previsions of a modern plant”.

Albert White, director of the Chamber of Commerce, appeared to be satisfied with the explanations provided by executives of the company about the Environmental Protection and Recovery Plan. “They are doing a good job, it is not a typical destructive open-cast mine” he said, referring to the work done by the Company led by Engineer Richard Fifer-Carles.

The businessmen, members of this important business association, received important information from executives of the Project, Lázaro Rodríguez, Corporate vice-president of Operations of Grupo Petaquilla; Rafael Eysseric, Director of Operations of Petaquilla Gold, Leonel Silva, Superintendent of Safety and Environment.

“That is our task by Law”, pointed out  Henriquez, in a ceremony where the Petaquilla Gold, S. A. company, with the leadershipo of engineer Richard Fifer, delivered the royalties to the Municipality of Donoso.

Henriquez remineded everyone that the government’s task is not mining, but to supervise and control this activity for things to be well done.

He stated that this legal loophole affects the communities and the environment; not the government, nor the mining companies, nor the illegal miners, who will be able to perform this clandestine activity protected by the lack of legislation that would penalize them exemplarily.

The Legal Department of Castilla del Oro Foundation  – led by entrepreneur Richard Fifer-Carles – participated in the meeting and explained to the locals the steps needed to be followed in order to form the Board, and gave the forms explaining how they need to be completed with the relevant information.

On their part, the residents appreciated the support provided by Castilla del Oro Foundation on the formation of the group, they were pleased with the advice and promised to deliver all the information required to achieve recognition as a legally established group within 15 days.

The Castilla del Oro Foundation, led by Richard Fifer-Carles and chaired by Cristobal Colon in Spain, will develop a very important social labor in the area of Cerro del Andevalo –Huelva.  In this line comes the concern about environmental topics, this time, we will discuss the topic biological diversity.

Protected area management model

The categories established by the UICN (Union Internacional de Conservacion de la Naturaleza – International Union for the Conservation of Nature) constitute an international point of reference, recognized by the Agreement on Biological Diversity, to categorize the variety of ways to manage protected areas. They represent a key reference that helps model the management and priorities of the protected areas worldwide.

UICN considers that the categories for the management of protected areas are an important global standard for planning, establishing, and managing protected areas.

The objectives UICN supports and actively promotes are:

Facilitate the planning of areas and protected area systems

• Provide a tool for the planning of protected area systems and broader planning strategies, in a bioregional or eco-regional scale
• Encourage the government and other entities to develop protected area systems with a range of management objectives that adapt to the national and local conditions
• Give recognition to various management agreements and governance models.

Improve the information on management of protected areas

• Provide international standards for gathering data, producing reports on the conservation efforts at a global and regional scale to make easier the comparison between countries and establish a frame for global and regional evaluations, and to facilitate the spreading of information.
• Improve the communication and mutual understanding between all of those implied in conservation
• Reduce confusion derived from adopting many different terms to describe the same types of protected areas in different parts of the world.
• Help regulate the activities in the protected areas
• Use the categories as guidelines to regulate the activities nationally and internationally, i.e., by prohibiting certain types of activities in determined categories according to the management objectives of each protected area.