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The doctor in biology Pedro Jaureguiberry always loved nature. As a child, he lived in rural areas in the provinces of Córdoba, Santa Cruz and Buenos Aires, but never in a big city. Already in high school, he became interested in natural sciences. Son of an agricultural engineer and a school teacher, the Argentine plant ecologist has become, at 44 years old, one of the three winners of the second edition of the Frontiers Planet Prize (FPP), which awards scientists who make significant advances in climate science. Each of them will receive one million Swiss francs ($1.1 million).
“I was always attracted to macrobiology, which involves being in the field looking at large-scale patterns, and not so much to laboratory biology,” Jaureguiberry said in an interview with América Futura from Villars-sur-Ollon, in the Swiss Alps, where he was awarded the prize. While doing his PhD at the National University of Córdoba, the Argentinean joined a project within the Institute of Plant Ecology, in which he studied fire in the forests of the center of his country, in the Chaco region.
Between 2007 and 2015, as part of his doctoral thesis, he explored the forests surrounding large urban developments in Córdoba, a province in which fire plays a very important role: every year there are fires associated with human presence, particularly in the area of the Punilla Valley and the Sierras Chicas. “When doing field ecology, I measure the response to fire in species, and other colleagues take care of the mapping,” he explains.
In addition, Jaureguiberry participated in large interdisciplinary reports that led him to be part of the group that prepared the global report of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBESa document that confirmed that nature continues to decline worldwide in response to direct man-made factors.
“I signed up to lead a section of the report that ended up being very important and that consisted of assigning what drivers [causas] They are the ones behind the patterns and indicators that they analyzed in the report”, which was published in 2019. It took three years of work and almost all the authors who participated in it went on to lead the review of the methodology and then write the paper which ended up being published in Science Advances.
The study led by Jaureguiberry consists of trying to explain what are the main causes behind the patterns of biodiversity loss at a global level, which are established through indicators. “We were able to establish – in the most robust and possible way that has been done so far – what these are drivers and in what relative importance each one contributes to the loss of biodiversity,” explains the Argentine.
The main causes identified by Jaureguiberry and his team are the change in land and sea use, the direct exploitation of natural resources, pollution, climate change and invasive alien species. In America, Jaureguiberry explains, “the main factor that determines the loss of biodiversity throughout the entire continent is the direct exploitation of natural resources: deforestation, hunting and fishing, followed by the change in land use,” he says.
The methodology applied to paper published in Science Advances The study was very rigorous: they preselected almost 4,000 reports related to biodiversity loss at a global level and analysed about 575 in depth, then extracted information from about 163 on the causes. “The methodology was very robust, which was a relevant factor for publishing it in a journal as demanding as Scienceand I think that for the FPP it was relevant,” he says. “Finally, we were able to give it a statistical backing that did not exist before.”
“Latin American scientists do not start from the same place”
The Argentine’s work can serve as a compass for future scientists to continue investigating other aspects of biodiversity loss that have not yet been explored. In addition, the award will be a great boost for the work of a researcher who is used to always dealing with budget shortages. “Funding is never enough,” explains the Cordoban. For his work, his institute receives funding from public bodies such as the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research and the Fund for Scientific and Technological ResearchBut they are usually small, “just between 5,000 and 8,000 dollars for two or three years of research,” he says. So they also seek foreign funding.
“Having reached this point, after having swum against the tide for almost two decades, is a great satisfaction, but it also allows scientists from Argentina and Latin America to realize that we are not starting from the same place as other colleagues from North America, Europe and Oceania, who have much larger funds available,” he says. The other winners of this edition are from USA and Germany. “I learned to write the papers in English, but the ideas come to me in Spanish!” says Jaureguiberry with a laugh.
On the other hand, the ecologist regrets that in Argentina the environmental situation is not good, and that, except for small initiatives such as agroecology or responsible management of traditional agriculture, there have been no notable changes to conserve ecosystems. “Perhaps the change in mentality is not happening on the scale it should, and that does have to do with the drivers indirect consequences of biodiversity loss: policies, institutions and the productive sector in general,” he says.
Argentina is particularly affected by land use change, due to its economy’s dependence on agribusiness. Work like Jaureguiberry’s can help determine which policies and incentives to deploy to benefit communities and ecosystems. “We scientists cannot do all the work: we are dedicated to doing science and communicating it in the best possible way. In Argentina we need a large-scale change: the loss of biodiversity and climate change affects all sectors, and as a society we must rethink the way we live,” he says.
Looking ahead, the ecologist plans to update the database with new research published in recent years. The prize money will undoubtedly hel
p expand his scientific work in studies that may provide clues on how to tackle the climate crisis.
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