How a Colombian Biologist Reimagines Care and Resistance in the Forest

Short description: In this episode of What Takes Root, Colombian biologist and community advocate María Clara Botero Zapata shares how growing up in a campesino family surrounded by mountains and forests shaped her understanding of life, care, and resistance.She reflects on her family’s decision to create a natural reserve, restoring land that had already been deeply impacted by deforestation and environmental degradation, and how that process transformed not only the ecosystem, but their relationship with their community. Through her studies in biology, María Clara began to question traditional, often colonizing approaches to science, and instead turned toward a more relational and community centered way of knowing.At the heart of her story is a deep recognition of care work, especially the invisible labor carried by women and girls who sustain life even in the face of environmental crisis. María Clara invites us to rethink what it means to protect nature, reminding us that we cannot protect what we do not know, and that sometimes, our greatest teachers are the trees, the soil, and the communities who live in close relationship with them.For more information about ORA, visithttps://orawards.org/