Ricardo Brandão
Hands that heal, a mind that plans, eyes that watch over, and a voice that inspires – Ricardo Brandão, corathat he feels, embodies the idea that knowing, protecting, and passing onthe acts separatein the mission to conserve the natural world, its birds and the rest, the idea of a microcosm that fascinated Henry David Thoreau and that today, two siscenturies later, leads Ricardo to delve into the tiniest details of his prownown Walden Pond – over there near Gouveia, in theSerra da Estrela.
Guardiactive active, he has grown accustomed to monitoring populations, tracking movements, identifying threats, and acting on the front lines of protection, broadening his perspective and seeking strategiesisstrategies to preserve biodiversity at the “macro”. Let’s say he is the bridge between conservation theory and the reality on the ground. Ricardo has not only read Thoreau but lives the ethos Thoreauethos indailyand sows that seed in the younger generation, ensuring that the legacy of respect and admiration for wildlife continues to grow.
On a day-to-day-to-day, there is aislists of lists indecipherablelists posted on the doors and walls of the CERVAS clinic (Center for Ecology, Recoveryand Surveillanceof ). Today, one of them shows patients in one of the stages of recovery(ablack, two forest owls, eight Galician owls, black kites, aandlittle owls) and about to move on to the stages leading up to the long-awaited release.
“It might sound a little cold to say this, but at a certain point, this is just another bird. We’re notnot concerned with the individual, even though that is our foundation. We work to be taken more seriously in broader issues related to protected areas and conservation. We are in a hospital to rehabilitate individuals, but that, doesn’tjust,, it just a tool to reach the public, to raise awareness.”
These are traumas, frafcrashes, crashes from first flights and inexperience, crashes and collisions; one tries not to waste too much time; andstages are shortened—since the animals have to continue their journey; gthe schedule, the center’s resources, and the issues biollogicaland and the conservation conservationof each speciesis. There is a lot of improvisation and resourcefulness. It is second nature to poke holes in cardboard boxes with a knife or to use painter’s tape, newspaper, and paperpaperfor for printingX-rays (to wrap and protect the birds' tails).
What gets Ricardo out of bed in the morning is keeping the project. “It’s the feeling that we’ve started something, that we want to keep it going, and that CERVAS [founded in 2004] has gained some relevance. The responsibility toward the project is what drives me the most. And the visiontheof of saving little birds.”
Ricardo holds a degree in Veterinary Medicine from the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, with additional training in Conservation Biology Brandã– inbegins “very solitary”, about 700 animals passing through CERVAS every year with releases almost da– continues to believe that the most important is creating projects to solve the identified problems. Today, he has the sensethat “thereis more empathy toward animals”, far fewer cases of persecution and illegal captivity, greatereffectiveness in rescue networks, and “much more information”.
He speaks of greater environmental awareness,, but he knows that “hasn’t is a concernfor people”, whonature tourism is here to stay. “WWe cannot allow protected areas to become recreation. It would be interesting toto to have nature tourism that is more grounded in knowledge. Not immediate immediate, nit is for the masses, but it makes use of what remains of heritageheritagenatural heritage.”
Encyclop,, Ricardo loves to surround himself with kids and adults, showing that thetonguewinding its way inside the cranial cavity, and asking whichwhich animal flies the highest (the griffin-of-upellupell), name your favorite bird (the “easy answer” is thebearded vulture or bone-breaker) and pass the skulls, talons, and a few feathers from hand to hand. A traveler and explorer of the planet and its protected areas, he has traversed Rajasthanin India, set foot in the AmazóPeruvian , got lost in new taxonóand finds herself “opening its eyes to other groups” and their “relationships biollogicalrelationships”: cmushrooms,snails, butterflies… “I’m interested in everything. The more you devote yourself to the natural world, the less you need to travel. You focus more and more on a small space, where there are more and more things to observe. And when you moveinto the microcosm, you no longer have to go anywhere. Nonot whatdon’t don’t want to travel, but I increasingly feel the urge to deepen the search and make it more meticulous.”
The depth of the observationis gradually replacing the superficialitysuperficiality of distant travels, creating minfinite . “The simplification of life is the elevationof of the soul,” thought Thoreau, who needed thewithwith nature, to immerse himself in it to reestablish contactwithwith himself. “I went to the woods to live on my own terms, to suck the marrow out of life, to annihilate everything that was not life, and not, when I came to die, find that I had not lived.”
Ricardo, a force of nature, reveals the same profoundand transcendent connection, andstudy and experience, contemplation and recognition of the intrinsic value of the natural world. Knowledge that goesbebeyond scientif – sensory, emotional, and is. Perhaps theof its profile is pedagogy—the education of the youngest among us, the guardians of tomorrow. True conservation is a long-term endeavor.
