IN LOVING MEMORY OF OUR COLLEAGUE, DR. CHUSA GINÉS, WHO DIED IN A PLANE CRASH ON JANUARY 28, 2002, IN THE ANDES MOUNTAINS.
The common element that emerges when people describe Chusa is light — reflected in her smile, her elegance, her generosity, her intellect, her commitment, her ideas, her passion.
Dr Chusa Ginés (María Jesús Ginés) grew up in Madrid, Spain, and came to Canada to study. She received a PhD in biology from Carleton University in 1987, specializing in molecular genetics and biotechnology. And although she adopted this country as her home, she maintained close ties with her family. Her happiest recollections of her childhood revolved around a family summer home in rural Spain with few amenities, where she lived close to the farmers and the natural environment. She was intensely curious and a challenger of the status quo. As a young woman she embarked upon a backpack tour of Africa and Asia that established her connection to the needs and aspirations of people in developing countries.
Chusa combined her love of nature, her inquisitiveness, and her drive for equity into a very promising career in research for development. In 1991 she joined IDRC in Ottawa, where she was instru mental in the development of the Sustainable Use of Biodiversity (SUB) Program Initiative, a program that addresses the problem of the loss of critical food and medicinal plants that millions of poor people rely on for their survival. Chusa was a firm believer that modern science could be blended with traditional ingenuity to find local and long-lasting solutions for the world’s impoverished. She practiced this daily, traveling extensively and maintaining close contacts with researchers, farmers, and practitioners in the developing world with whom she nurtured relationships of mutual challenge and learning.
As team leader for SUB, Chusa guided a multiregional and multi disciplinary group of professionals through the increasingly political issues related to access to genetic resources and intellectual property rights. Early on she recognized the importance of providing research support to indigenous peoples and communities at the local level, both to further the understanding of what works and what are the constraints “on the ground,” the policy environment required to enable the potential there, and to build capacity for indigenous and local peoples to define their own research agenda, conduct research, and participate effectively in international fora with an informed position. As a member of the Crucible Group, she was instrumental in initiating the second round of discussions, which led to the publication of two volumes of Seeding Solutions.
Although Chusa was fiercely committed to her work, she lived the other side of her life with equal fervour. She and her partner, Patrik Hunt, lived in an idyllic log house in the Gatineau Hills, near Ottawa. She enjoyed sharing meals with friends, the seasonal pursuits of skiing or going to the beach, dancing to the latest musical offering at the local pub, and organizing events to commemorate International Women’s Day. Chusa and Patrik’s son, Dario, was born in May 1995. After his birth she faced the challenge of balancing motherhood and career with characteristic determination.
In December 2000, Chusa undertook a two-year secondment to the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), based in Cali, Colombia. Her task: to coordinate a network that conducts research on ways to incorporate poor farmers’ needs into the application of biotechnology to cassava, a root crop that is a staple for much of the developing world. She and her family moved to Quito, Ecuador.
On the morning of January 28, Chusa boarded a 727 airliner in Quito destined for Cali, where she was to give a presentation at CIAT headquarters. As the plane prepared to land at a stopover destination, it slammed into a volcano obscured by the fog of the Andes Mountains. The next day, at the time of her presentation, two institutions – IDRC in Ottawa and CIAT in Cali – and many other people around the world whose lives she touched, paused to collectively mourn the loss of this radiant and courageous woman. Her ashes have been interred in the garden of the wonderful summer house in Spain. A fellowship to support advanced studies for women in developing countries is being developed in her name, so that her contribution may continue in a way she would have wholeheartedly embraced, by enabling the potential of others.
This testimonial was written by Erin O’Manique, friend and colleague of Chusa.