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Prof. Dr. Benjamin Quesada (M) is climatologist, professor at Universidad del Rosario (Bogotá) and co-leader of the Earth System Science program. He holds a PhD in Meteorology, a MS in Climatology and a BS in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Environmental Engineering. His research primarily focuses on: land-atmosphere interactions, temperature extremes, land-cover change impacts on climate and ecosystem functions and terrestrial carbon cycle. Since 2011, he has published 20 peer-reviewed publications in a diversity of journals on those topics. He is also Contributing Author of the IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land (SRCCL, Chapter 2 "Land-Atmosphere Interactions", 2019) and of the recent Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Global Assessment report (Chapter 4 "Plausible futures of nature, its contributions to people and their good quality of life", 2019).
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Legal mining increasingly ravages forests in Colombia
Colombia is the second most biodiverse country in the world and around half of its land territory is forest-covered. Deforestation is one of the biggest worldwide threats not only for biodiversity but also for climate. In fact, removing trees by burning them or then letting them decompose in their entire life cycle, leads to massive carbon dioxide release currently reaching up to 10-15% of all the human greenhouse gases emissions.