Hay Festival Colombia Digital

Perhaps the issue of greatest urgency today is the terrible impact that human activity is having on the planet Earth, threatening thousands of species and ecosystems with extinction, and even putting the viability of our own species at risk. Books such as The Sixth Extinction are of great importance for teaching us about this situation. This international bestseller by the journalist Elizabeth Kolbert (United States) won the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction in 2015. In this work the author looks at how human activity has disturbed the balance of nature, to the point that it is the greatest threat to the planet’s biodiversity and on the point of causing the world’s next mass extinction. Kolbert has written regularly for The New Yorker since 1999, specializing in scientific subjects, and in her most recent book, Under a White Sky (2021), she asks what can be done to stop and repair the damage being caused by humans, looking particularly at the work of biologists, engineers and researchers who work tirelessly for the conservation and restoration of nature. In conversation with Carla Santana Torres.

Eliane Brum is a Brazilian journalist, writer and documentary maker. She was educated at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica in Rio Grande do Sul and has won over 40 Brazilian and international reporting awards. She participated in the compilation of special reports on Doctors Without Borders, ¡Dignidad!, which also featured authors such as Mario Vargas Llosa. She is the co-director of two documentaries: Uma historia severina and Gretchen: filme estrada. She is the author of La Amazonia: viaje al centro del mundo (2024), a book that narrates her move from Sao Paulo to Altamira, a city where the construction of one of the world’s largest (and most ecologically devastating) dams is taking place. Brum will speak to Adriana Villegas.

Simultaneous translation from Portuguese to Spanish available

Perhaps the issue of greatest urgency today is the terrible impact that human activity is having on the planet Earth, threatening thousands of species and ecosystems with extinction, and even putting the viability of our own species at risk. Books such as The Sixth Extinction are of great importance for teaching us about this situation. This international bestseller by the journalist Elizabeth Kolbert (United States) won the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction in 2015. In this work the author looks at how human activity has disturbed the balance of nature, to the point that it is the greatest threat to the planet’s biodiversity and on the point of causing the world’s next mass extinction. Kolbert has written regularly for The New Yorker since 1999, specializing in scientific subjects, and in her most recent book, Under a White Sky (2021), she asks what can be done to stop and repair the damage being caused by humans, looking particularly at the work of biologists, engineers and researchers who work tirelessly for the conservation and restoration of nature. In conversation with Carla Santana Torres.

Twenty years ago, Clemens Schlettwein, an investor and philanthropist specialising in environmental conservation projects, and Gemma Knowles, a holistic animal therapist and dog nutritionist, author of several books on animal welfare, started their life project together, running a shelter for dogs and cats in El Garraf (Barcelona). Project and life partners, they have launched various enterprises related, for instance, to permaculture with horses or the development of a solar car. They will talk about all this with William Mut, an expert consultant in policies and promotion of productive investment, who has worked with numerous multilateral institutions including the World Bank, the United Nations, COMESA and the EU.

Event in Spanish

Tiago Pitta e Cunha is one of the most significant international personalities on issues related to the oceans and the changes that need to happen in our attitude towards them. He has worked for over two decades to put maritime issues on political and institutional agendas. He has coordinated the European Union’s Integrated Maritime Policy at the office of the European Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and has represented Portugal and the EU at the UN in various international bodies dedicated to all matters related to the sea. Also director of the Oceano Azul Foundation, in 2021 he received the Pessoa Prize, awarded annually to Portuguese nationals who have distinguished themselves as outstanding figures in scientific, artistic or literary life. He will talk with Jesus Calero, director of ABC Cultural, who researches oceans and their shipwrecks,

They will discuss the need to care for the oceans with journalist and poet Carlos Aganzo.

With simultaneous translation from Portuguese to Spanish and vice versa.