Charles Brewer-Carías

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Charles Brewer-Carías (* 1938 in Caracas ) is a Venezuelan naturalist and explorer who has achieved international fame due to his numerous expeditions and scientific work on Venezuela's nature. More than 20 animal and plant species and a cave are named after him.

Life

Charles Brewer-Carías was born into a family of Venezuelan intellectuals. His grandfather Mathias Brewer had moved to Venezuela as a diplomat and was for a long time Vice Consul in La Guaira , a port near Caracas. His mother's family is descended from a Spanish general who came to the country in the early 19th century to fight Simón Bolívar .

Brewer-Carías accepted a position as an assistant in the anthropology department of the Sociedad de Ciencias Naturales de La Salle in Caracas at the age of 14 and discovered an archaeological site near his parents' house a year later . At the age of 16 he took part as a photographer on an expedition to study the fishing methods of Margarita fishermen. He received his doctorate as a dentist in 1960 and worked in this field for almost 20 years. In addition, he began to study biology in 1961 and in the same year led his first expedition to the upper Río Paragua , which was organized with the aim of finding the lost city of San José de Guirior . In 1979 he became a politician and Minister for Youth and Sport in the Venezuelan cabinet. In addition to his exploratory activity, he was active as a gold prospector and was involved in the scandal caused by the book Darkness in El Dorado published by Patrick Tierney about allegedly inhumane anthropological practices in dealing with the Yanomami .

Brewer-Carías is a recognized survival specialist and developer of a knife that is well-known in military and professional circles. His personal record for making a fire with sticks is 2.7 seconds. He is also known as a photographer and has published photos of Venezuela's nature as illustrations in several books. In 2003, he was badly wounded in the shoulder by a gunshot in his home with burglars and took several years to recover.

Brewer-Carías lives in Caracas and has five children from two marriages.

Scientific work

Brewer-Carías led more than 200 expeditions to the Guiana Highlands of Venezuela. He is particularly interested in the tepuis , whose flora and fauna he studied. Most of his endeavors are multidisciplinary and his publications cover the fields of botany , zoology , entomology , geology , geography and anthropology . Among other things, he lived with the Ye'kuana in the Orinoco basin and did dental anthropology, he speaks the language of the Ye'kuana and Yanomami fluently. Together with Napoleon A. Chagnon , he published two documentaries on the Yanomami: Yanomama: A Multidisciplinary Study and The Feast . He also worked as a speleologist and explored the caves of the Cerro Autana , the Simas des Sarisariñama-Tepui and the Cueva Ojos de Cristal in the Roraima-Tepui and discovered the Muchimuk cave system .

In the course of his scientific career he worked with more than 250 different scientists, including Brian Broom , Julian Steyermark , Bassett Maguire , and James V. Neel .

Honors

In 1981 he received the Land Army Cross and the Orden del Libertador for his expeditions to the Essequibo region. For his work with Brian Broom at the Yanomami, he was appointed Honorary Research Associate at the New York Botanical Garden , as well as at the Jardín Botánico del Orinoco in Ciudad Bolívar . More than 20 plant and animal species in the rainforests of South America are named after Brewer-Carías, such as the Brewcaria plant genus or the frog Colostethus breweri . The Cueva Charles Brewer of the Muchimuk cave system also bears his name.

Publications

Brewer-Carías is the author of several books and the co-author of numerous scientific publications. Among other things, he has published the following works:

  • Las Simas de Sarisariņama . In: Boletín Sociedad Venezolana de Ciencias Naturales La Salle . tape 132-133 . Caracas 1976, p. 549-623 .
  • Venezuela . Central Information Office, Caracas 1982.
  • La Vegetación Del Mundo Perdido . Cromotip, Caracas 1986, ISBN 980-265-478-7 .
  • The Lost World of Venezuela and Its Vegetation . Caracas 1987, ISBN 980-265-477-9 .
  • Roraima the crystal mountain . Editorial Arte Press, Caracas 1988, ISBN 980-300-488-3 .
  • Cerro de la Neblina: resultados de la expedición, 1983-1987 . Fundación para el Desarrollo de las Ciencias Físicas, Matemáticas y Naturales, Caracas 1988, ISBN 980-300-437-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Update from University of Michigan University of Michigan Report (Parts 1, 2, 3) of the Ongoing Investigation of the Neel-Chagnon Allegations. Retrieved February 19, 2010 .
  2. ^ Marto-Brewer Explorer Survival Knife. Retrieved February 19, 2010 .
  3. ^ Katie Garrett: Charles Brewer-Carias. (PDF file, 148 kB) (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on October 11, 2010 ; Retrieved February 19, 2010 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.charlesbrewercarias.com
  4. ↑ Patrick Tierney: Darkness in El Dorado. (PDF file; 61 kB) (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on November 4, 2013 ; Retrieved February 19, 2010 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.uea.ac.uk
personal data
SURNAME Brewer-Carías, Charles
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Venezuelan naturalist and explorer
DATE OF BIRTH 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH Caracas