Grunsber Naturalist Group and the City Council organize a series of informative conferences on Sierra Bermeja

The lecture series will begin on November 21 and end on December 18, and will address various disciplines, such as entomology, geology, ornithology and botany, as well as a lecture dedicated to the depletion of natural resources. On Saturday, November 29, there will be a guided hiking route through Sierra Bermeja, prior registration at info@grunsber.org.

The City Council of Estepona reports that on Friday 21 will begin at the Casa de Las Tejerinas, a series of five conferences and a geological interpretation route with the aim of disseminating information about Sierra Bermeja and environmental issues, organized by the Naturalist Group Sierra Bermeja, Grunsber, with the sponsorship of the City of Estepona.

The conferences will address various disciplines, such as entomology, geology, ornithology and botany, in addition to a presentation dedicated to the depletion of natural resources derived from the consumption model of the capitalist system, and will be held in the Alfonso Gil room of the Casa de las Tejerinas, except for the conference ‘Degrowth and collapse’, which will take place in the auditorium of Aprona, Foundation for People with Functional Diversity of Estepona.

Sierra Bermeja is the best example of serpentine ecosystems (vegetation growing on peridotites) in Spain. The uniqueness of this natural space lies, among other aspects, in the fact that it is home to the only Spanish fir forest in the world on peridotites, rocks from the upper mantle of the Earth located at depths of between 70 and 150 kilometers. In addition, its soils rich in heavy metals have favored the appearance of endemic flora and fauna of great value, adapted to these extreme conditions.

The program will be as follows:

Friday 21, at 18:00 hours: Entomology of Sierra Bermeja. The Malaga researcher and disseminator specialized in entomology, José Manuel Moreno Benítez, president of the Andalusian Society of Entomology (SAE), will give the lecture ‘Introduction to the insects of Sierra Bermeja’.

Friday 28, at 17:30 hours: Geology of Sierra Bermeja. The doctor of Geology, José Manuel García Aguilar, collaborating professor of the Department of Ecology and Geology of the University of Malaga, will give the lecture ‘Sierra Bermeja: a door to the deep interior of our planet’.

In addition to the conference, on Saturday, November 29, there will be a geological interpretation route by García Aguilar, prior registration at info@grunsber.org.

Thursday 4, at 18:00 hours: Ornithology in Sierra Bermeja. The young naturalist Andrés Rojas Sánchez, a member of Grunsber and the Strait Ornithological Group (GOES), and recently appointed expert bander to the Bird Migration Center of SEO BirdLife, will give the lecture ‘The birds of Sierra Bermeja’.

Thursday 11, at 19:00: Decrease and collapse. The writer and editor Carlos Taibo Arias, professor of Political Science and Administration at the Autonomous University of Madrid, until his retirement, will give the lecture ‘Decrecimiento y colapso’.

Thursday 18, at 18:00: Botany of Sierra Bermeja. Professor of Botany at the University of Malaga, Noelia Hidalgo Triana, one of the signatories of the book Sierra Bermeja. Biodiversity and conservation values of serpentine ecosystems (La Serranía, 2024), will give the conference ‘The plant communities of Sierra Bermeja’.