Patrick Blandin

IUCN Comité français

Dr. Patrick Blandin is Professor Emeritus at the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (Paris),  and Honorary President of the IUCN French National Committee. He studied natural history sciences at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS, Paris; 1963-1967). Assistant Professor at the ENS (1967-1973) and Université Paris 6 (1973-1988), he was elected Professor at the Museum in 1988. He was Director of the laboratoire d’Ecologie Générale (1988-1998), Director of the Grande Galerie de l’Evolution (1994-2002), Director of the laboratoire d’Entomologie (2000-2002), and  since 2003, he has been a member of the “Hommes-Natures-Sociétés” Muséum Department until he retired in 2009.

For his thesis, he studied spiders ecology in the Lamto savannah, Ivory Coast (1969-1981). During the period 1975-1985, he organized and directed a Forest Ecology field station close to the Fontainebleau forest, south of Paris (Station Biologique de Foljuif, ENS). He directed interdisciplinary programs on suburban forests (1980-1983) and woodlots in openfield landscapes (1992-1994) near Paris. From 1968 to the present, he studies the systematics, biogeography and evolution of Neotropical butterflies, his dominant passion. Since 2004, he has been working on historical and epistemological aspects of conservation of nature and biodiversity. He received awards from the Société Zoologique de France (1983), the Académie des Sciences (1987), and the Société Entomologique de France (2008). In 2010, his book Biodiversité, l’avenir du vivant received the Grand Prix Léon de Rosen from the Académie Française. 

Dr. Patrick Blandin teached zoology, biology, fundamental and applied ecology, and biodiversity issues. He was a board member of the UNESCO Chair Développement et Aménagement Intégré des Territoires (1994-2009), and he coordinated, in 2009, the publication Training of actors for sustainable development prepared by the Sustainable Development Pole of UNESCO Chairs in France.

Dr. Patrick Blandin was involved in Fontainebleau Forest conservation problems during the 90s and he chaired the Scientific Committee of the Fontainebleau UNESCO MAB Reserve (2003-2006). Involved since 2004 in the association Païolive, a IUCN member dedicated to the study and conservation of an exceptional biodiversity site in Ardèche (Southern France), he participates in its scientific activities. He is a board member of the Center for Environmental Ethics and Law (IUCN member, USA).

On behalf of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, he created and chaired the IUCN French National Committee (1992-1999). From 2008, he was a co-chair of the IUCN Biosphere Ethics Initiative. He is an affiliate member of the IUCN WCRL Ethic Specialists Group.  Since 2018, he is co-chair of the group that prepared the Ethics Manifesto of the IUCN French National Committee, The Future of Life. Our Values in action, published in 2021.

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