"Only with an unlimited effort of coherence will we be able to make the ecological message really penetrate society. It is very difficult to convince if you do not embody the values you advocate". This was stated by Josep Maria Mallarach, environmental consultant and first director of the Natural Park of the Volcanic Zone of La Garrotxa, during the round table held yesterday at the University of Navarra on the occasion of the opening of the Forun Congress 2014.

"The ecological discourse must overcome the prejudices it has of using other languages that are not scientific-technical and address the totality of the human being, not only that rational dimension," he explained.

Asked during the colloquium about the possibility of technology living in harmony with nature, Mallarach affirmed that "technology on a human scale and in harmony with nature is possible, but what has been developed is a technology that has transgressed and is not in accordance with natural law". As an example of this, he cited the disintegration of the atom or genetic manipulation.

The round table, focused on "Cosmos. Ecology of the person and his environment", also intervened as speaker Federico Velázquez de Castro, president of the Spanish Association of Environmental Education, and Jordi Puig, professor of the Faculty of Sciences, as moderator. Some members of the organizing committee of the Congress also participated: the vice-rector for Students and president, Tomás Gómez-Acebo; José María Torralba, director; Marta Revuelta, technical director; and Covadonga Alonso-Allende, general secretary.

The environmental crisis in relation to the economic crisis, the search for ideals, the increase of artificialization, the need to bet on reflection, the reductionism of ecology to only the material, or the full meaning of ecology were some of the topics discussed.