Thread by @alexandraphelan

Lovely piece from @guardian on our recent publication in Proc @royalsociety B "What would it take to describe the global diversity of parasites?"

It may not be apparent but this is also a story of rectifying colonial "exploration narratives".

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theguardian.com/environment/20…

To follow the article, here's a great explainer thread about our piece by @wormmaps about the science of estimating how many uncounted parasites there may be (including the Brothers Grimm & uncountable things):

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https ://twitter.com/wormmaps/status/1329070889372176384?s=20

In the @guardian piece, I love this quote about entire unknown worlds:

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But there's also another aspect (not fully address in the @guardian piece) which ties into my work on international law, health, biodiversity & access to genetic resources and equitable benefits sharing.

Essentially:
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We should
1) stop "exploration narratives" (eg virus (or parasite) hunters) which are deeply entrenched in colonial views (pervading even #covid19 origin responses).

2) wealthy countries must provide financial and technical support to examine *existing collections* and

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3) ensure locally led research into parasite priorities (inc. human & animal health) and

4) comply w international law, eg Nagoya Protocol, to address historical (& continuing) scientific injustice.

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We examine this more in our piece (DM4pdf):
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rs…

active link without space 🤦‍♀️

https://twitter.com/wormmaps/status/1329070889372176384?s=20