Investigation against the clock

1995/09/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Ekologia
• Giza zientziak

The biologists of the University of Washington wanted to analyze the situation of biodiversity in the Kurilak Islands. The Russian government has just announced that in the coming years they want to fill the Islands with people and for this reason it has begun to give special incentives to the Russians who want to come to them. This could endanger the research project initiated by American researchers three years ago.

Washington researchers have already listed 30,000 species of animals and plants, of which 40 were hitherto unknown. Biologists have announced that the next two years will be decisive for Kurilak to complete his research on biodiversity in the Islands. Of the data collected so far, it is a comprehensive exhibition, for which it is essential to analyze the evolution of some species. However, if I arrived before the Russian government made that crowd that wants to carry there, they should suspend the research project.

The chain formed by curves is long, from Kamchatka to the island of Hokkaido. Since 1945 it is Russian archipelago, but Japan claims ownership of the southern islands. According to the biologists, disputes between Russians and Japanese have caused Kurilak to give a political vision of the Islands and that no one cares about the biological value of the archipelago. Anyway, the only thing they have asked for at the moment is to stop investigating.