Cultivating Orchids, and Resiliency, in Colombia

Emergence Magazine is a quarterly online publication exploring the threads connecting ecology, culture, and spirituality. As we experience the desecration of our lands and waters, the extinguishing of species, and a loss of sacred connection to the Earth, we look to emerging stories. Each issue explores a theme through innovative digital media, as well as the written and spoken word. The Emergence Magazine podcast features exclusive interviews, narrated essays, stories, and more.

In this narrated essay, Heather Swan, author of Where Honeybees Thrive, travels to Colombia, where nearly 50 percent of the country’s 4,300 native species of orchid are endangered. As the Colombian people and landscape continue to recover from a half century of civil war, she meets one family who is pursuing restoration and resiliency by cultivating native orchids and returning them to the wild.

________________________________

Listen to the rest of this story on Emergence Magazine’s website or by subscribing to the podcast. 

Heather Swan is a poet, writer, and beekeeper. She is the author of Where Honeybees Thrive: Stories from the Field, winner of the 2017 Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award. Her poetry has appeared in Cream City Review, Poet Lore, Iris, Basalt, and Green Humanities Review, and her nonfiction has appeared in ISLE, Resilience, Edge Effects, and Aeon. She is a lecturer at UW-Madison, where she teaches environmental literature and writing.

Felipe Villegas is a photographer, biologist, and visual communicator. He is the main expedition photographer for Colombia’s Alexander von Humboldt Biological Resources Research Institute. His work has appeared in the Toronto Star, La Patria, and PLOS ONE. His awards include First Place (Fauna) and Honorary Mention (Flora and Fungi) at the Concurso de Fotografía Ambiental Corpocaldas 2010.