Organizers of the 9th Brazilian Congress of Herpetology are concerned with recognizing the participation of black people, disabled people and women in studies of amphibians and reptiles in Brazil. Herpetology comprises the line of reptiles that includes snakes, lizards, alligators and turtles; and amphibians, such as toads, frogs, tree frogs, salamanders and caecilians. The ninth edition of the event is the largest ever recorded, with around 900 participants, and will occupy the three auditoriums of the Unicamp Convention Center until Friday, (26) July. The program takes into account human diversity and lines of research in the area and was designed with the aim of encouraging inclusion.
One of the concerns, according to the president of the congress and professor at Unicamp, Luís Felipe de Toledo, was trying to balance the number of women lecturers and debaters. Although there is still a small number of women in leadership positions in herpetology research, the number of undergraduate and postgraduate students in the area is already gender equal, according to the organization of the event.
Lecturer Ana Prudente, linked to the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi (MPEG), is one of the researchers with an already consolidated history in herpetology. She tells a little about her journey in participating in the congress. Two decades ago, Ana faced the challenge of field research in the Amazon. “My generation broke barriers. We needed estar in a predominantly male universe, go to the field. Today's generation will work with equality, with mechanisms that favor the recognition of motherhood as a stage of life and not a problem”, he highlighted.
Ana points out the transformation of the Amazon landscape, with the advance of deforestation, as one of the main challenges for biodiversity research in the Pará region. “Environments that have never been studied are being destroyed. In addition, we have a series of species collected that are no longer found at the site, that is, they represent local extinctions. ”
In fact, species conservation is a major concern for amphibian or reptile researchers. According to Professor Luís Felipe, despite Brazil being the country with the largest number of described amphibians, 1026 according to the Brazilian Society of Herpetology, there are still hundreds to be studied. Likewise, there are 773 described reptiles.
Unicamp, according to the professor, plays a central role in the development of herpetology in Brazil. “The University hosted the first meeting of researchers in the field, in 1982, and also the Latin American Congress, in 1993. Great professors, trainers of a generation of herpetologists, such as Ivan Sazima, Adão Cardoso and Augusto Abe, also passed through Unicamp” .
The congress is also honoring professor Célio Haddad, one of the only zoologists who is a member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, and Marcio Martins, a professor at the University of São Paulo. Martins gives a conference on island snakes (which live on islands) in anticipation of the content of a book he is about to publish.
