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Who we are The idea of creating AXENA (Galician for Youth Association of Nature Studies) came up within a multi-disciplinar group, basically formed by young Biology, ICT-Engineering, and Translation & Interpreting researchers and students in the University of Vigo, Spain. All of them had a keen interest in Nature.
Our passion for Nature and our curiosity gave rise to an appropriate technology to kindly study and observe wildlife, which is the most of times aloof and shy before humans.  In Galicia (North-Western Spain) we are really lucky: our land houses a huge biodiveristy, because of the countless habitats and ecosystems existing in this quite small area. But Galician nature suffered from big changes in the last decades--like habitat degradation and destruction and different polluting agents; these facts require the biggest consciousness of the civil society if we want the measures undertaken to preserve the environment to succeed.
 The development of new technologies has been one of the R&D key points in both the University and the private sector for the last years. Besides, technological development, usually regarded as a menace for the environment, could become a powerful research tool, as well as a medium for social awareness and environmental education. All our knowledge is (and will be updating) in this site, as guides, articles, comments and our beloved 'microdocs', short videoclips on some of the species observed with infos about them. Our aim is clearly making nature more familiar: we want to get all kind of audiences. We know it might result in possible losses of scientific accuracy. Anyway, when working with wildlife the best respect and know-how have to guide the actions done nearby, in order to avoid any possible trouble. Going from a double, circular premise: "to preserve you need to know, you need to know to make public", we hope this knowledge can be used to bring the nature around us nearer to our society.
Finally, we want to thank the Consellería de Medio Ambiente of the Xunta de Galicia for the financial support, with a subsidy covering our expenses during 2006.  |