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

An illustration showing Pablo Guerrero writing in a notebook, surrounded by cacti.

An illustration showing Pablo Guerrero, a botanist at the Universidad de Concepción in Chile, writing in a notebook, surrounded by cacti.

Brett Affrunti

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.