EcoStrategist

Hay algo profundamente valioso en querer entender cómo funciona la naturaleza. Durante siglos, biólogos y ecólogos se han dedicado a observar, describir y tratar de comprender la enorme diversidad de formas de vida que nos rodean. Gracias a esa curiosidad conocemos especies que antes eran invisibles para nosotros, entendemos relaciones ecológicas extraordinariamente complejas y hemos descubierto procesos que sostienen ecosistemas enteros. Muchas veces, además, los conocimientos que hoy resultan fundamentales para la conservación comenzaron con una pregunta que no pretendía resolver ningún problema inmediato. Por eso, defender una ciencia orientada a la conservación no significa cuestionar el valor de la investigación básica. Al contrario: significa reconocer que nuestro conocimiento sobre la biodiversidad se construye poco a poco, gracias al trabajo acumulado de personas que estudian especies, poblaciones, ecosistemas, genes, comportamientos, interacciones y procesos ecológicos. ...

I remember the exact meeting where I stopped believing in perfect plans. We were sitting in a community hall somewhere in the Amazon basin maybe something like 20 years ago; plastic chairs, a fan that wasn't doing much against the heat, a stack of maps we had spent weeks preparing. Beautiful maps, honestly. Deforestation models, priority zones, protected area gaps, all color-coded and defensible. We had the science. We had the funding logic. What we did not have, it turned out, was the room. An older man in the back,   I won't use his name, but I still hear his voice, waited until I finished my presentation and then asked, quietly … And where in this plan is my son's future? I didn't have a slide for that. That question rearranged something in me that has never gone fully back into place. Twenty-five years + into this work, I still think about it more than I think about most of the technical papers I've read or co-authored. The Methodology I Actually Belie...

  In a world that often measures success through productivity, wealth, and recognition, the Japanese word ikigai offers a gentler way to think about a meaningful life. Ikigai, pronounced ee-key-guy , is commonly translated as “a reason for being” or “that which makes life worth living.” It can describe the purpose that guides someone through life, but it can also refer to something much simpler: a morning ritual, a creative hobby, caring for a loved one, tending a garden, or sharing time with friends. People often assume that purpose must be extraordinary. They believe they need to discover one perfect career, calling, or mission that will explain everything. Your reason for getting up in the morning does not have to impress anyone. It does not need to become a business, attract attention, or change the world. Meaning can be found in small actions that make life feel worthwhile. For one person, ikigai may be teaching. For another, it may be cooking for family, learning a la...

 The Silent Crisis No One Talks About at the Monday Meeting There's a conversation happening in break rooms, in bathroom stalls, and in the quiet of a commute home, a conversation about exhaustion that goes bone-deep, about dread that arrives with Sunday evening, about smiling through a team call while quietly falling apart. Mental health at the workplace is one of the most pressing challenges of our time, yet it remains one of the least addressed. The numbers don't lie. The World Health Organization estimates that depression and anxiety cost the global economy $1 trillion per year in lost productivity. Burnout was officially recognized as an occupational phenomenon by the WHO in 2019. And yet, in most organizations, the response to a struggling employee is still a polite suggestion to "take a day off”, as if a single day off could undo months of chronic stress. This blog isn't about quick fixes or motivational posters in the office kitchen. It's about understandin...

  After decades working in the field I've come to one unavoidable conclusion: you cannot save nature without first understanding people. There is a moment every field conservationist knows. You stand at the edge of a forest patch, species checklist in hand, satellite imagery overlaid with boundary lines, and you look out at a landscape that is quietly, relentlessly changing. Not because of some distant abstraction called deforestation, but because a family is clearing half a hectare to plant maize. Because a herder's cattle are following the same corridor they have followed for generations. Because a river that once ran clean now carries the residues of a village that has no other option. In that moment, the biology is simple. The ecology is legible. But the solution? The solution lives entirely in the domain of human behaviour. I have spent my career, working to conserve key ecosystems and species in Latin America, and more recently in other areas around the world, watch...

Yesterday I sat down with someone and we started talking , the kind of talking that starts casual and ends up going somewhere you didn't expect. We were talking about purpose. And somewhere in the middle of that conversation, something quietly shifted for me. We've all asked ourselves the question at some point. What is my purpose? We frame it as a deeply personal search,   something to discover alone, like a treasure buried somewhere inside us, waiting to be uncovered. I've spent time with that question myself. Turned it over. Examined it from different angles. And for a long time, I thought the answer had to do with me. My passions. My fulfillment. My happiness. But yesterday, my friend said something that stopped me: "Purpose isn't something you find inside yourself. It's something that happens between you and other people." "We think we're doing things for ourselves. But we're always,   always,   doing them for someone else." ...