This is one of the most frequently asked questions when giving a lecture on the subject or in an informal conversation. It seems simple to answer, but it is not. The issue could also be: Why the Otter Project? Although the two questions are linked and may even have a unique answer.
The Otter Project of the Instituto Ekko Brasil was born out of a great idea. It can be said to be impressive because it is a common idea, or perhaps even a wrong idea. Today, you can't really know the why of the otter, the Project. Today, after more than 30 years, I no longer know what is mine and what is not. The Otter Project is certainly not mine anymore. It was appropriate. And I believe that I worked for it, that I wanted it. I confess this is something that worries me; nevertheless, it fills me with satisfaction and joy. The Otter Project was transformed, and it couldn't be different, like everything in life. Life is movement.
The Projeto Lontra is transitory like the body, like my body, which fades and rots over time. But it is also possessed of an eternal soul, of real meaning, which is diluted in words and undone by any attempt to explain it. The Otter Project, as a project, has been born and died numerous times.
The Otter was an act of courage in itself because it was the result of a thought, an idea. Embarrassing, for being personal. With a certain shame, something to avoid. But after being expressed, consigned, and concluded, assume the Project itself, the form of the thought, of the idea. From there, the Project starts to express itself and to communicate with the world. The otter, omnipresent in the wild, difficult to see - inspiring the Otter Project, is no longer a thought, and the Project thus becomes something impersonal - shame dissolves. The symbol takes shape in a constructed narrative.
I venture to say that every project is born out of a thought, or an idea, which, at first, we try to avoid. Or rather, it is born of hundreds or thousands of thoughts that are thrown into the void, hoping that there will be some resonance, a boomerang effect, for whatever unit it may be. In this perspective, the Project is a resonance of the void. Difficult to explain, just like the water.
I say water because it is a common point among almost all conservation projects in Brazil. The water because it has no defined shape. Water because my attempts to explain and define to my students always fall into the void, in despair of our lack of understanding of the world around us. Again, that emptiness. That's why water, that's why Otter.
In my ecology classes, with my students, I always stressed the difficulty in defining water, despite being so common and present in our daily lives. Water for the otter, water for man, water for the ecosystem. Water that reflects blue when oligotrophic, or green when eutrophic. Odorless, colorless, and tasteless. Current, resurgence, relentless as a hurricane. Water that we learned at school. But also shelter for bacteria, plant fragments, and mineral elements. Water can be liquid, solid, or gaseous. Diluted in a thousand formulas, in many languages – it reflects the chaotic knowledge we have of nature. Also, our difficulty in thinking, about the facts, about the world around us, and what we don't see.
So, my understanding of the otter has always been diffuse and chaotic, like a fetter of ignorance that I try to break free from. I chose not to run away, to go deeper, as in a deliberate suicide of my unconsciousness. Hence, my curiosity about the energy modeling of ecosystems. The flow of energy between the various biotic and abiotic compartments, which make up, like an artist's painting, the system. For that reason, I ended up at the University of Florida, as a guest researcher for a year, dedicating myself exclusively to the dynamic modeling of ecosystems, and the importance of otters in the system. Today, I try to analyze the thought as energy, which gives rise to projects. The emergence, with "m", of the thought. Ideas that spread in all directions. When one finds resonance, it returns; the rest is lost. Isn't that so? Out of a thousand ideas, one that survives?
At the University of Florida, at the Center for Wetland, I tried to define the otter's value, based on the emergy, in the light of physics, quantum physics. I came up with numbers that price the otter, but seem unreal, although economically and numerically valid. However, the otter's value is not in her existing property, as a species. When we look at an energetic model of an ecosystem, we can see that the otter's existence is defined by its dependent origin, just like all other species. That is, the otter cannot be seen as an independent identity. The otter takes the form of an otter through energetic interactions within the system. This lack of being translated into the interdependent causal energy efficiency that we observe in the ecosystem, in the relentless pursuit of less entropy.
Therefore, from this perspective, the neotropical otter is a cause-effect result of the systemic void. And why systemic void? Because we cannot say that the otter exists just as we see it. This is what Quantum Physics has taught us. In the system, form defines the function, and vice versa. But beyond that....... The deeper we get into knowledge about something in particular, the more we discover that nothing exists. In that sense, the shape is empty; the otter is empty... The otter as a form does not exist - but emptiness is a form. We can't forget the function; more than that, we need to understand it.
Therefore, the otter's existence is not something intrinsic, inherent, of its own characteristic, but a designation of causes and conditions, not essential. In ecosystem ecology, it is what we call a process. If we want to preserve the otter, we must necessarily maintain the system's working processes because the otter itself is not what it appears to be. The otter's existence is in the interdependent relationships between the biotic and abiotic components of the system. Therefore, for the Otter Project, the otter represents a flagship species, the Water Sentinel, which is a tool for environmental education and social mobilization to modify adverse realities. In short, the otter is an expression of life, and like any other expression, it must be respected and preserved. Why the otter? That is why. Because the otter is life, the result of the search for knowledge, for the void.
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