Growing up amid the wilderness landscapes of Argentina, Pedro Jaureguiberry became interested in natural sciences at a young age. The son of an agronomist and a schoolteacher, he was drawn to fieldwork and the study of large-scale patterns, which led him to plant ecology.

This summer, at the age of 44, Jaureguiberry was one of the three winners of the Frontiers Planet Prize, which rewards scientists who achieve significant advances in climate science. Awarded $1.1 million, Jaureguiberry will be able to continue climate change research in Argentina, despite the recent cuts in funding implemented by the country’s new president, Javier Milei.

Milei, a right-wing libertarian, has vowed to slash government funding for science and has called climate change “a socialist hoax.” Many researchers in Argentina fear the cuts will continue, devaluing research into a wide variety of arenas, including climate science.

Meanwhile, the Frontiers Planet Prize, awarded in June for only the second time, seeks to reward potentially planet-saving research. “We know that we are reaching tipping points very fast, although we have signed planetary boundaries on climate and biodiversity such as the Paris Agreement and the Kunming-Montreal Agreement,” says Johan Rockström, head of the prize jury and director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

Jaureguiberry was the only winner from the Global South. In 2019, he led a study seeking to explain the main causes of biodiversity loss at the global level. Through analysis of existing research, his team was able to show that changes in land and sea use are the prime driver of biodiversity loss worldwide, followed by the direct exploitation of natural resources, such as fishing, logging, and hunting, and then by pollution. (Climate change and invasive species were drivers, but considerably less significant, the team found.) The results were published in Science Advances in 2022.

Jaureguiberry spoke with Earth Island Journal in Villars-sur-Ollon, Switzerland, where he had come to accept the Frontiers Planet Prize.

How do the drivers of biodiversity loss vary between different regions and ecosystems?

The study I led consists of trying to explain 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 drivers are and the relative importance of each one contributes to the loss of biodiversity.

The main causes identified by our team are the change in land and sea use, the direct exploitation of natural resources, pollution, climate change and invasive exotic species. In the American continent, 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.

The methodology applied to the paper published in Science Advances was very rigorous: we preselected almost 4,000 reports related to biodiversity loss globally and analyzed about 575 in depth, and then extracted information from about 163 about the causes. The methodology was very robust, that was a relevant factor for publishing it in a journal as demanding as Science, and I think it was relevant for the FPP, as it was possible to give it the statistical support that did not exist before.

How are current negative environmental policies driving biodiversity loss in Argentina? How can science be more influential in the politics of Latin America?

In Argentina the environmental situation is not good, since there have been no notable changes in the way ecosystems are managed, just some small initiatives such as agroecology or even responsible management of traditional agriculture: there are more and more publications on these topics, so producers are paying more attention to it. Perhaps the change in mentality is not happening on the scale it should, and that does have to do with the indirect drivers of biodiversity loss: policies, institutions, and the productive sector in general.

If there is something that Argentina suffers from, it is the change in land use, since its agrobusiness-export economy depends a lot on that, so works like the one I led could be used to signal which policies and incentives should be deployed to show that there are solutions that allow “win-win” scenarios between communities and ecosystems, and that the conditions between the different sectors are met, making knowledge and resources available.

We scientists cannot do all the work; we dedicate ourselves to doing science and communicating it in the best way possible. 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 lifestyle we lead.

The Argentine government’s budgetary adjustment on science makes scientific research difficult. How do you do research in this socioeconomic context?

Since I have dedicated myself to research, it has always been hard. In general, we are forced to discuss the budget for the institute and our work through research projects, seeing where to get funds from. These are never enough, and compared to other projects with external funds, ours are very small, just between five and eight thousand dollars for two or three years of research, which is very little. My research group always found ways to finance itself abroad, through interaction with other groups. But it is certainly a disadvantage to always be worried about funds.

Have you already thought about how you are going to use the prize money in the future of your research? What projects could you carry out?

Having arrived here, after having swam almost two decades against the current, is a great satisfaction, but it also allows scientists from Argentina and Latin America to realize that we do not start from the same place as other colleagues from North America, Europe, and Oceania, which have much larger funds available. I learned to write papers in English, but the ideas still come to me in Spanish!

Certainly, this award will allow me to continue doing research in Argentina and the research done so far could serve as a compass so that future scientists can continue investigating other yet unexplored aspects behind global biodiversity loss.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.