The Institute of Marine Research signed, on 1 March at the Council of Galician Culture, a declaration establishing 9 March 2023 as the first Day of Galician Naturalism.
The chosen date commemorates the birth of Pedro José García Balboa, known as Father Martín Sarmiento, perhaps the most relevant naturalist of our land and a pioneer in many aspects of the study of the natural environment.
Beyond the declaration, reproduced below, at the Institute of Marine Research we want to underline our strong commitment to the protection of Nature and to the recognition of the great value of its study.
Naturalism has been, and continues to be, crucial to the advancement of scientific knowledge and to the dialogue between science and society. The defence of scientific knowledge, based on observation and experimentation, also contains a defence of Naturalism itself, which in many cases is the foundation of the scientific method that frames our activity today.
Naturalism has been, and continues to be, crucial to the advancement of scientific knowledge and to the dialogue between science and society.
Naturalism, as a passion for the study of Nature, may today differ in several ways from the work carried out by Father Sarmiento in the eighteenth century. Yet from the IIM we see a clear current connection with a phenomenon that, in recent years, has stood out for its capacity to democratise and improve the science we do.
Citizen science, as a way for citizens to participate in science, often rests on the same curiosity, passion and rigour that accompanied the work of the Galician scholar and that are the foundations of the practice of naturalism. A large part of society already feels called to participate more actively in the creation of knowledge that belongs to everyone.
For our Institute, this new commemoration day, this 1st Day of Galician Naturalism, is a good reminder of the importance of continuing to interact with society and to build ties with our community so that, like us, they can give free rein to their passion for the world around us and be encouraged to study it through the lens of naturalism and scientific knowledge.
Inspired by the figure of those who, like Father Sarmiento, came before us, and excited by the passion that Nature and Science awaken in people all over the world, we wish you a very happy Day of Galician Naturalism.
Declaration of 9 March as the Day of Galician Naturalism
1.3.2023, Council of Galician Culture
9 March, Day of Galician Naturalism
For the undersigned organisations, it is a true honour to participate in this act of tribute and vindication.
It is a tribute because on 9 March we commemorate the birth, in 1695, of the first learned scholar of nature in Galicia: Pedro José García Balboa, that is, Father Martín Sarmiento, whom we may consider the first historical Galician naturalist.
And it is a vindication because the study of Galician nature needs greater social and political recognition, in order to guarantee its inclusion in school and university curricula and in common policies.
Father Sarmiento, as the botanist Miguel Colmeiro had already pointed out, was a forerunner in eighteenth-century Spain in calling for the need to study Natural History.
From 2023 onwards, 9 March should not be just another day: we want it to become the first Day of Galician Naturalism, Sarmiento’s day, and we urge it to appear in calendars and school programmes, on social networks and in the press, and to be a day for bringing ourselves closer to nature and nature closer to us.
Father Sarmiento valued nature and was aware of the importance of scientific knowledge for public health and trade. He left this clear in his writings, many still unpublished, which distil infinite erudition together with an enormous capacity for observation, analysis and synthesis. Quality science in difficult times.
Now, in the twenty-first century, thanks in part to the outreach work of teacher Rafael López Loureiro through his blog Ao noroeste do Noroeste, Sarmiento and his naturalist work are once again coming to the fore.
And deservedly so: Sarmiento and the study of nature are highly relevant today, at a dark and sad time for the conservation of our natural heritage, which loses habitats every day and sees biotopes altered by hundreds of wind farms, thousands of kilometres of power lines, millions of eucalyptus trees and an almost infinite lack of social knowledge of the biodiversity around us. Sadly, and it hurts to say so, Galicia is a country without environmental education.
We hope that 9 March, as the Day of Galician Naturalism, will serve to begin a process of knowledge of our environment, opening new and deeper naturalist and scientific studies. With rigorous, high-quality information, may we be able to protect what still remains and restore what has already been damaged.
This year and always.
Long live Nature! Long live Science! Long live Sarmiento!