GUADELOUPE
Bishop Philippe Guiougou of Guadeloupe responded to the invitation of the President of the French Office for Biodiversity, Sylvie Gustave-Dit-Duflo and the Regional Agency for Biodiversity of the territory, Wednesday, October 2, in Les Saintes, for the launch of the expedition ‘The revisited planet of the Guadeloupe islands’.
The Catholic Church in Guadeloupe, in a Facebook post, said that for two months, in conjunction with the National Museum of Natural History, specialists, divers, and scientists will complete the inventory of terrestrial and marine biodiversity of the southern islands of the archipelago.
“It should be remembered that more than 80 per cent of species remain to be discovered on our planet. Insects, molluscs, crustaceans, annelids, and algae, for example, are groups of organisms among the richest in species, but whose diversity remains unknown and underestimated,” the post said.
It said the project “should allow the acquisition of new scientific data” on so-called “neglected” biodiversity, both terrestrial and marine. Insects, small invertebrates, fungi, and mosses will be sampled in the southern islands, alongside algae, mollusks, crustaceans, and marine worms.
The Catholic Church in Guadeloupe, like the Universal Church, is concerned with respect for life. It remains convinced that the Christian perspective can allow for a more adjusted relationship between humans and other forms of living beings and actions in favour of biodiversity.
“A local biodiversity that we know is particularly rich in Guadeloupe, with regard to the many endemic species that populate the islands of our archipelago and their ecosystems,” the post stated.