The Science Life Plants

Meet a scientist tracking cactus poaching in the Atacama Desert

Climate change, mining and legal and illegal plant collection are threatening desert flora

Several black mounds of cactus dot a rocky, hilly landscape

Copiapoa solaris is already severely threatened due to climate change. Though their dark mounds dot the Atacaman landscape, some of these plants are already dead.

Pablo Guerrero

By Rebecca Dzombak

Pablo Guerrero has been visiting cacti in the Atacama Desert his whole life, first on family trips to the Chilean coast and later as a researcher studying the impacts of climate change and illegal poaching on the fragile flora.