Antonio Machado Carrillo

Dr. A. Machado (Madrid, 1953) has been a lecturer in Ecology at the University of La Laguna (Tenerife, Canary islands), superintendent of Teide National Park, adviser on environmental policies for the Presidency of the Spanish Government, Regional Councillor of the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) and President of the ECNC (European Centre for Nature Conservation). He has also worked as independent consultant for several international organizations and foreign cooperation programmes. He headed the OAG, a state public foundation based in the Canary Islands (Granadilla Environmental Observatory) until 2018, when he retired. He continues with his private researches in Entomology and as editor-in-chief of the Journal for Nature Conservation (Elsevier group). He is also a full member of the World Academy of Arts and Science and of the Canarian Academy of Language.

This is a good opportunity to explain to English-speaking people that names in Spanish are formally constructed differently from English in order to keep track of the genealogy, of who is descendant of whom. It is the first surname that is mostly used and even if we write our name with both surnames, the title is only followed by the first one. In my case, it reads:

Christian name (Antonio) + Father`s family name (Machado) + Mother´s family name (Carrillo) = Antonio Machado Carrillo. Thus, I am Mr. Machado not Mr. Carrillo.