“Up here, it is as if the pandemic did not exist”
by Seeing the capital from up here, in the hills high above the rooftops, our perspective changes. The distance is small, but mentally, this is another …
Author: Lise Josefsen Hermann
Sex-workers in Ecuador badly affected by the economic aftermath of COVID-19
Characterized by old, white colonial style buildings, the historical center of Quito is recognized as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO and normally well visited by tourists – foreign as well as national. It has also become infamous for insecurity reasons, issues with drug and alcohol use in the streets and theft. And then it is one of the areas where you find sex workers offering their services on the streets.
The shark case in Colombia – including researchers in policymaking
A recent controversial resolution on fishing quota in Colombia, that permitted to catch sharks, have had a strong reaction in the scientific area. Three private universities in Bogota managed to make the government go over it again, after making a common call to include researchers and studies.
Colombia struggling to improve level of research
A recent initiative of the first Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation in Colombia creates hope in the research-ambience in the country and expectations of stronger budgetary prioritizing of this central area for development in the country.
Female scientist fighting for her place studying climate change in Ecuador
Meet the Ecuadorian scientist who defied machismo-culture in the academic world in Ecuador, to study thoroughly a big passion for her – climate change and its effects on her native mountain region and in the end the water supply in the country.
“Our water depends on these places – and we still don’t understand well, exactly how”
Maria Elena Gutierrez-Lagoueyte, a young ecologist, from the Colombian city Medellin, studies in detail the plants of the páramos (the moorlands). She studies the plants in order to understand how the unique Andean ecosystem plays a central role in the water cycle, providing the drinking water for around 40 million people in South America. But we do not know how exactly those moorland plants function.
“The spectacled bear just doesn’t sell as well as the polar bear”
The Colombian hydroclimatologist Daniel Ruíz Carrascal is one out of only three IPCC authors from Colombia. He has dedicated his life to studying climate change, especially in the mountains and the páramos (the moorlands). And he is worried about the future – he doesn’t have a clue what will happen with those fast and important changes.
When the Amazon is on fire, one of the many species affected is the Pink River Dolphin
Meet a Colombian scientist, passionately researching about the pink river dolphin, a crucial species to protect aquatic ecosystems in the Amazon. The enormous habitat of those border-crossing dolphins makes them a key-species to protect big areas. If they are well, so is the Amazon. And when the Amazon is on fire, it affects species like the dolphin, as well.
Nicaragua: Making local people participate in climate change research, that’re going to save their lives
Researcher Abdel García from Humboldt Center, one of Nicaragua’s most renowned environmental institutions, is passionate about involving local population in climate change adaptation research. “In the near future Nicaragua as a country where people live, might stop existing,” he fears
Nicaraguan sociologist in exile
The renowned Nicaraguan sociology researcher Elvira Cuadra has been working from her exile in Costa Rica since December 2018. She is one out of at least 55.000 people from Nicaragua who has escaped for political asylum in the neighboring country.