Raquel Gaião Silva is the Youth Ambassador for Climate Change

Raquel Gaião Silva, a 24-year-old biologist from Viana do Castelo, has been appointed Youth Ambassador for Climate Change. The young master's student in Biodiversity and Marine Conservation (EMBC) at the University of the Algarve (UAlg) received this distinction after her participation in the Call The Global Youth Video Competition, organized as part of the United Nations (UN) Climate Summit. She was also one of the winners of the Young Researchers' Award from the GBIF - Global Biodiversity Information Facility, an international network for sharing biodiversity data, which enabled her to carry out her research.

Raquel Gaião Silva's application for the UN Call consisted of a mini-documentary video about Ocean Alive, a Portuguese cooperative dedicated to protecting the ocean, and the work was presented at the Climate Summit in New York on September 23rd. The video was the first selected out of 400 candidates from all over the world. Raquel is now scheduled to travel to Chile, where she will take part in the Conference of the Parties (COP25) next December.

Raquel currently collaborates with the BlueBio Alliance, a private non-profit association whose mission is based on promoting relationships and dynamics between stakeholders and promoting entrepreneurship focused on marine bio-resources and sustainable business.

The GBIF - Global Biodiversity Information Facility network aims to provide open access information on all types of life on the planet. Raquel Gaião Silva's research, with the support of the Centro de Ciências do Mar (CCMAR) and data made available by GBIF, as well as other sources, focuses on the influence of ocean temperature on the distribution of macroalgae along the coastlines of Portugal and Spain, from the Bay of Biscay to the Strait of Gibraltar. The Portuguese Node of GBIF has been based at the Instituto Superior de Agronomia of the University of Lisbon since 2015, under a protocol with the Foundation for Science and Technology. The aim of the Portuguese GBIF node is to support national institutions in making national and international biodiversity data available.

Image credit: University of Algarve