Philosopher of biodiversity. Woody Cotterill, at the Natural History Museum in Bulawayo. (© 1999 Fred Powledge.)
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F.P.D. (Woody) CotterillA reduction of uncertainty
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The
practitioners of the biodiversity sciences do not commonly do their work
in luxurious circumstances. The places where biological diversity is found
are natural regions, subject to all the vagaries, excesses, and surprises
of nature, from the wilting moist heat of tropical forests to razorback
mountaintops that exhaust the sturdiest of legs. Africa
offers even less comfort to the inquisitive scientist than most places.
Not only is nature often quite raw and close to the bone in Africa; research
is frequently hindered by lack of governmental interest and funding. Civil
wars and wretched health conditions sometimes make research downright
dangerous. More than in most places, seekers of biodiversity in Africa
are on their own.The good news. The benefits, however, are enormous. Where else can you watch elephants in the wild, white rhinoceros grazing, several varieties of antelope, scorpions as big as salad plates, bats by the dozens, and falcons and eagles, duikers and warthogs? Woody Cotterill sees all this on a daily basis, and while he revels in the variety of life around him, he is both saddened and energized by what he knows is its steady decline and by the degradation of the smaller organisms and habitat that allow the larger, more celebrated creatures to survive. Cotterill, who is more formally known as F.P.D. (Fenton Peter David) Cotterill, practices evolutionary and conservation biology from a base in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. In addition to serving as principal curator of vertebrates at the Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe, he is the scientific officer and a founding member of the Biodiversity Foundation for Africa; the assembler and custodian of an immense data base of information on regional biodiversity, especially that in the basin of the Zambezi River, and expert fixer of broken Land Rovers. On top of that, Cotterill is a genuine philosopher of biology, prolific writer of papers, and studious critic of his profession. [To Cotterill Page 2] |
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