User:PhanterOnza/Javier Castroviejo

Javier Castroviejo Bolívar, also known as Javier Castroviejo, born on october 5 th, 1940 in Bueu, is a biologyst and gallician researcher. He was the director of Estación Biológica de Doñana since 1975 until 1988.

Due to his incessant activism for the protection of Doñana, against the development plans of the Almonte-Marismas project and the Huelva-Cádiz coastal highway, he was declared persona non grata by the Almonte City Council.

Studies
Born in Bueu, he soon moved with his family to Tirán, Moaña (he was the son of José María Castroviejo Blanco-Cicerón). He studied high school in Vigo, the first year of his Biological Sciences at the University of Santiago de Compostela and the rest of at the Complutense University of Madrid, where he graduated in 1965. Once graduated, he went to Germany (where he was from 1965 to 1968) to carry out his doctoral thesis, which he presented at the Complutense University in 1972, under the title " Contribution to the knowledge of the taxonomy, ecology, biology of heat and moulting of the capercaillie(Tetrao urogallus L.) in Spain", qualified with the highest note.

Researching and Teaching work
In 1972, he obtained a scientific collaboration position from the CSIC by competitive examination to work at the Doñana Biological Station. Two years later he was appointed acting director and, in 1975, effective director of the center, which he directed until 1988. He was a CSIC research professor until 2001, and taught during a course at the University of Salamanca.

His contact, in 1957, with Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente was decisive: he shared numerous experiences with him, collaborated in his famous Encyclopedias (Fauna and Iberian Fauna) and dedicated himself to the study and defense of protected species. Of this great disseminator said: His work not only changed the mentality of the Spaniards, but it was reflected in realities: in protected species, in legislation... In addition, there is something that is barely recognized: his contribution to dignifying the field biologist profession. The great tribute to Rodríguez de la Fuente should be academic. Castroviejo is the author of various research papers on northern Spain, very important for understanding the winter ecology of vertebrates in the Cantabrian mountain range, the role of holly (Ilex aquifolium), the biology of the capercaillie (he described the new subspecies Tetrao urogallus cantabricus) and that of the wolf, with radiolabeling techniques used for the first time with this species in Spain. He promoted and updated the publication of the scientific journal Doñana Acta Vertebrata, and carried out important work internationally, such as the creation of the Biological Station of El Frío in Llanos de Venezuela, and in Bolivia. Likewise, he carried out zoological expeditions in the former Spanish Sahara (taking advantage of military service practices, which he did divided into two years as ensign in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria) in Morocco, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Latin America.

He was one of the drafters of the current Law 91/1978 on the parque nacional de Doñana and Royal Decree 357/1984, which modified the Almonte-Marismas Plan. In addition to contributing to the halting of the Almonte-Marismas Plan project and the coastal highway, his work was essential for the protected area of the national park to increase by 13,000 ha and some 50,000 of pre-park. He was one of the founders, and president, of the Association of Friends of Doñana, vice-president and president of UNESCO's MAB (Man and Biosphere) Committee, and president of UNESCO's International MAB Coordination Council (Paris). He also chaired the IberoMAB (Network of Committees and Biosphere Reserves of Ibero-America and the Caribbean).

He directed seven doctoral theses at the University of Seville and at the Complutense University of Madrid.

Eponymous
Lepus castroviejoi Palacios, 1977, a hare endemic to the Cantabrian Mountains.

Book

 * 1982 - La faune (con Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente). París: Alpha. ISBN 2-7300-1100-5.

Articles in magazines
Castroviejo published a hundred articles in scientific journals, among which can be cited​:


 * 1973 -"Primeros datos sobre la ecología invernal de los vertebrados de la Cordillera Cantábrica", Asturmnatura, 1.
 * 1974 - "Dobre el lirón gris (Glis glis pyrenaicus Cabrera, 1908) en España", Doñana Acta Vertebrata, 1.
 * 1980 - "Catálogo de reptiles y anfibios con clave para su clasificación".
 * 1982 - "Conservación de zonas encharcables: Doñana y el Hato y el Frío, Llanos de Venezuela".
 * 2001 - "La tragedia de los bienes comunes y el ejemplo de Doñana". Derecho y medio ambiente: Revista jurídica para el desarrollo sostenible, 2 (8): 71-80.
 * 2002 - "Herpetofauna del Parque Nacional de Monte Alén (Río Muni, Guinea Ecuatorial)" (Con Ion de la Riva, A. I. Rial e C. A. Lasso) Graellsia: revista de zoología, 58 (2): 21-34.