Latin American communities lead climate data collection

Across Latin America, rural, Indigenous, and fishing communities are independently gathering and interpreting climate and environmental data as traditional weather patterns become unreliable.

Faced with increasingly unpredictable conditions, people in places like the Gran Chaco, the Guatemalan highlands, and the Chiquitania region of Bolivia are using local data as a survival tool.

These communities are building their own early warning systems and adapting scientific concepts into accessible formats, including audio in local languages and digital tools, to reach remote areas where risk management information is scarce. For generations, farmers, fishers, and Indigenous groups in Latin America relied on observing nature to manage their lands. However, global warming has disrupted these established patterns. Indigenous leader Norma Rodríguez of the Argentinian Chaco notes that traditional forecasting methods, once reliable, are no longer accurate.

This shift has prompted communities to take control of climate information previously seen as distant and abstract. Several initiatives are underway. In Guatemala, young people operate community weather stations. In El Salvador, women measure rainfall to provide early warnings, and in Mexico, fishers use bioacoustics to track endangered fish whose behavior has changed with the climate. These efforts demonstrate a shift from seeing scientific information as abstract to recognizing it as essential for daily life and decision-making.

Experts emphasize that data is only useful when it is applied and can inform local action.