Prémio Ernst Haeckel 2024 a Helena Freitas

A candidata proposta pela SPECO ao prémio Ernst Haeckel promovido pela European Ecological Federation (EEF), Professora Helena Freitas, foi a premiada do ano 2024. É o segundo candidato premiado que a SPECO propõe. O primeiro foi atribuído a Miguel Bastos Araújo, no ano 2018.

Este prémio foi atribuído pela primeira vez em 2011 e destina-se a homenagear um(a) ecólogo(a) pela sua contribuição notável para a ciência ecológica europeia.

Partilhamos convosco uma breve resenha histórica do seu percurso académico, profissional e de investigação na área da Ecologia:

Helena Freitas (Famalicão, 1962) obteve uma das primeiras teses de doutoramento em Ecologia em Portugal (1993). O Doutoramento, estudo sobre as respostas das plantas em ambientes extremos, foi desenvolvido na Universidade de Coimbra, em colaboração com a Universidade de Bielefeld, na Alemanha. Entre 1994 e 1996 realizou um pós-doutoramento na Universidade de Stanford, EUA, com Harold Mooney para melhor compreender o impacto do carbono nas alterações globais, particularmente nas alterações climáticas. Desde então, tem estado envolvida em projetos globais.

Diretora do Jardim Botânico da Universidade de Coimbra (2004 - 2012), preparou e coordenou o programa de requalificação deste espaço único de Coimbra e implementou estratégias de conservação. Para além da sua evolução académica no Departamento de Ciências da Vida da Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade de Coimbra, Helena Freitas ocupa a Cátedra UNESCO em Biodiversidade e Conservação para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável desde 2014. Dentro desta Cátedra tem implementado e apoiado uma rede de investigadores e instituições nas áreas da biodiversidade, ecologia, conservação e desenvolvimento sustentável.

Ao longo da sua carreira tem contribuído para um melhor conhecimento sobre a ecologia funcional da vegetação mediterrânica e sobre a gestão de espécies exóticas e invasoras como estratégia para minimizar a perda de diversidade dos ecossistemas. Com todos estes conhecimentos adquiridos fundou o Centro de Ecologia Funcional - Ciência para as Pessoas e para o Planeta (cfe.uc.pt) onde ainda é actualmente Coordenadora. Recentemente, lançou o Laboratório Associado TERRA – Laboratório de Sustentabilidade do Uso da Terra e Serviços de Ecossistema.

O conhecimento de Helena Freitas é reconhecido a nível internacional sendo convidada (2019 até agora) para a Assembleia da Missão de Adaptação às Alterações Climáticas, incluindo a Transformação Social, da Comissão Europeia. Actualmente é Ponto Focal Português do IPBES (sigla inglesa para Plataforma Intergovernamental para a Biodiversidade e os Serviços de Ecossistema).

Coordenou ou participou em vários projetos e consórcios nacionais e internacionais, incluindo o Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Orientou ou co-orientou mais de 30 dissertações de doutoramento sendo autor de mais de 200 publicações científicas internacionais indexadas e de diversas publicações de promoção e divulgação da ciência. Publica regularmente na imprensa nacional e regional, nomeadamente sobre ambiente, territórios e sociedade, planeamento e políticas de desenvolvimento baseadas no conhecimento. Em Março de 2000 foi agraciada com a Comenda da Ordem do Infante D. Henrique pelo Presidente da República Portuguesa Jorge Sampaio.

Esteve também envolvida em organizações não governamentais de ecologia e conservação, tais como: Presidente da Liga para a Protecção da Natureza (2002-2005), fundadora e Presidente da Sociedade Portuguesa de Ecologia (2004-2013) e Vice-Presidente da Sociedade Europeia de Ecologia (2009-2012).

Food industry 'too secretive' over nanotechnology

Comment from Patrick Mulvany, Co-chair UK Food Group, Friday, January 8, 2010

As warned in my New Year message, industry is pushing hard for greater control over the food system. Beyond GMOs, proprietary nanotechnologies and synthetic biology will confer even greater control to food and agribusinesses. Following hot on the heels of the DEFRA 2030 food strategy , published on Tuesday this week, which says "GM, like nanotechnology, is not a technological panacea for meeting the varied and complex challenges of food security, but could have some potential to help meet future challenges", the House of Lords published its report on Thursday "Nanotechnologies and Food". 
A BBC report on this is pasted below. The House of Lords report can be found here (report) and evidence here . The House of Lords committee, headed by Krebs (ex Food Standards Agency), is trying to educate the public to accept nanoparticles in their food or food packaging. The estimated market in food related nanotechnology is expected to increase 10 fold by 2012. 
Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, , run by the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, has found that there are currently 84 foods or food-related products that use nanotechnology. Lord Krebs said that the industry "...got their fingers burnt over the use of GM crops and so they want to keep a low profile on this issue. We believe that they should adopt exactly the opposite approach. If you want to build confidence you should be open rather than secretive." The openness and transparency proposed by the House of Lords committee is, however, very limited... Recommendation 30 says: "8.30. Consumers can expect to have access to information about the food they eat. But blanket labelling of nanomaterials on packages is not, in our view, the right approach to providing information about the application of nanotechnologies." Georgia Miller's (Friends of the Earth, Australia) excellent evidence to the Committee, in the same session with Sue Davies of WHICH and Vyvyan Howard, Soil Association (pp 156 and following, in part 2 of the report) includes in annexe the call from CSOs for a moratorium in the use of nanomaterials in food and agriculture. CIVIL SOCIETY GROUPS WHICH HAVE CALLED FOR A MORATORIUM ON NANOTECHNOLOGY'S USE IN FOOD AND AGRICULTURE . Growing numbers of civil society groups have called for a moratorium on the commercial release of food, food packaging, food contact materials and agrochemicals that contain manufactured nanomaterials until nanotechnology-specific regulation is introduced to protect the public, workers and the environment from their risks. 

Some of these groups are also insisting that the public be involved in decision making. Groups calling for a moratorium include: Corporate Watch (UK); the ETC Group; Friends of the Earth (Australia, Europe and the United States); GeneEthics (Australia); Greenpeace International; International Centre for Technology Assessment (US); International Federation of Journalists; the Loka Institute; Practical Action; and The Soil Association UK. The International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations, representing 12 million workers from 120 countries, has also called for a moratorium. The Nyeleni Forum for Food Sovereignty was a civil society meeting of peasants, family farmers, fisher people, nomads, indigenous and forest peoples, rural and migrant workers, consumers and environmentalists from across the world. Delegates were concerned that the expansion of nanotechnology into agriculture will present new threats to the health and environment of peasant and fishing communities and further erode food sovereignty. 

The forum also resolved to work towards an immediate moratorium on nanotechnology (Nye'le'ni 2007—Forum for Food Sovereignty 2007). The organic sector is also beginning to move to exclude nanomaterials from organic food and agriculture. The United Kingdom's largest organic certification body announced in late 2007 that it will ban nanomaterials from all products which it certifies. All organic foods, health products, sunscreens and cosmetics that the Soil Association certifies will now be guaranteed to be free from manufactured nanomaterial additives (British Soil Association 2008). The Biological Farmers of Australia, Australia's largest organic representative body, have also moved to ban nanomaterials from products it certifies. A faux 'moratorium' is proposed by the House of Lords committee. It is simply a recommendation not to allow the use of unlicensed materials. Risk Assessment "8.20. We endorse the case-by-case approach taken by the European Food Safety Authority in assessing the safety of products. It allows the responsible development of low-risk products where safety data are available and is, in effect, a selective moratorium on products where safety data are not available. It provides consumers with the greatest security and ensures that unless a product can be fully safety assessed, on its own merits, it will not be allowed on to the market (paragraph 6.12). (Recommendation 20)" It might be useful for the House of Lords committee to set this report in the context of a food sovereignty, as opposed to the food industry's, interpretation of DEFRA's indicators for a sustainable food system. A food sovereignty interpretation would emphasise specific indicators for good, healthy food sourced as locally as possible from knowledgeable and skilled food providers who use ecological practices.

The indicators align to each section of Food 2030:
1. Enabling and encouraging people to eat a healthy, sustainable diet
2. Ensuring a resilient, profitable and competitive food system
3. Increasing food production sustainably
4. Reducing the food system’s greenhouse gas emissions
5. Reducing, reusing and reprocessing waste
6. Increasing the impact of skills, knowledge, research and technology

The indicator assessments on the following pages should be read in conjunction with the UK Food Security Assessment For a backgrounder on the potential dangers of nanotechnology in the food system see "Down on the Farm: The Impact of Nano-scale Technologies on Food and Agriculture" We need to be vigilant. Patrick PS You may be interested to see that DEFRA's statistics team praises Cadbury's decision to make its Dairy Milk bar a fairtrade product (Indicators, p 123). This is the same DEFRA that highlights Kraft foods as an example of sustainable practice (Food 2030, p 28). People in Bournville will not be amused... DEFRA should rather have called in Kraft for 'sharp practice'. Patrick Mulvany Co-chair UK Food Group Senior Policy Adviser PracticalAction Bourton, Rugby, CV23 9QZ