Sustentabilidad Sin Fronteras

Every year, wildfires in Argentina’s Paraná Delta send smoke across entire regions, reaching both nearby and distant cities. Thousands of people breathe that smoke, but almost no one is measuring it, and what isn’t measured rarely gets acted on. This project will place air quality monitors across three provinces affected by this smoke, following it from where the fires burn to the cities where people live. For the first time, environmental and health authorities in these areas will be able to work with the same reliable data and understand who is exposed to unhealthy air, when, and where. Our goal is to help affected communities move from reacting to these events after they happen to anticipating and preparing for them. In the longer term, we hope this becomes a first step toward making clean air part of the national conversation in Argentina.

As a pediatrician, I’ve seen how easily air pollution slips through the cracks of our health system, because what isn’t measured rarely gets acted on. When wildfire smoke covers the Paraná Delta, it extends through different regions, affecting countless people without much data to work on. Over the next 18 months, we hope to close that gap by installing monitors across three provinces, linking that data to what health authorities actually see, and beginning to show who is breathing this smoke, when, and where. My hope is that we stop reacting to these episodes after they hit and begin protecting people before they do.

Dr. Damian Markov, Head of Climate and Health Unit, Sustentabilidad Sin Fronteras