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On harvest days, Professor Iván Gómez puts on some rain boots, ties his machete to one side of his belt, loads a portable cooler and starts walking.
He enters the forest like he did when he was little: with enthusiasm and some adrenaline.
“I think we are going to find many seeds,” he predicts.
Minutes later, he moves among the trees with wide crowns and very wide trunks with his eyes fixed on the sky;
The terrain is known perfectly.
“Aha, there he is.
This is native rubber, there is also copoazú.
And this one here is caimo colorado.
“We are lucky,” he says.
He picks a yellow fruit
From the ground, he peels it and extracts some black seeds that he carefully keeps in a piece of newspaper that he marks as “Caimo 1.”
A couple of hours later, each of the seeds will be undergoing a different germination treatment to see which is most effective.
The idea, says this self-taught native species recognizer, is to gradually restore the Amazon with species that were there long before machetes entered the jungle for another purpose.
Bryan Castillo, Julie Hernández and Iván Gómez look for seeds in the forest of the Amazonía Emprende farm.
NATHALIA ANGARITA
This jungle that you know like the back of your hand is a small piece of the farm occupied by the company Amazonia Emprende in Caquetá, one of the six Amazonian departments of Colombia.
These 30 hectares of restored forest have become an oasis in the midst of other extractive models that prevail in the area.
But it was precisely the logging industry that sharpened the vision of Gómez, who dedicated himself to felling trees a few years ago and learned to recognize them avidly.
Now, he uses all that knowledge to reverse what he and thousands of other loggers have done.
Brayan Castillo, 20 years old, also usually accompanies him on expeditions.
This young man keeps track of all the data on each seed they collect: the geolocation, the quantity, the state in which they found it... “It is very useful for us to know where each of the seeds comes from due to traceability.
It is very important.”
The selection is so meticulous that it seems that what they are looking for are precious stones.
“We only take those that are in optimal condition,” he says.
Once in the nursery, the alchemy begins.
The seeds are cared for with the same care and each one of the same litter is subjected to a different process: irrigation with hot water, cold water, combined with coconut water, with a small suture... “We have managed to make seeds that take time months to germinate, they do it in just two weeks,” he says proudly.
Amazonia Emprende began researching restoration processes in 2019 without imagining that four years later they would become a reference for technique and conservation in the country.
Although they teach workshops at their Bosque School, located an hour's drive from the capital, Florence, the project that attracts the most attention is the Amazon Native Species Seed Center.
There is no other like it in the biome although it is central to its restoration.
This jungle is so deteriorated that it is beginning to reach the point of no return.
According to the scientific community, if deforestation reaches 20%, it would lose the ability to regenerate.
Currently, the Amazon reached 17%.
That is why for Julie Hernández, co-founder of the company, it is essential that restaurants also become a competitive option with other sources of income in the region such as livestock, impregnated in the DNA of the Caqueteños.
“We have to start generating income for the owners of the seed trees because, at this moment, for the owner of the farm, that tree is the same as any other.
So, when the burning season comes, they light the candle,” Hernández explains to two students in one of the weekend workshops.
“But what would happen if I told the owner that he has a treasure and that I am going to pay him for his seeds?”
For this woman from Bogotá who insists on seeing the glass half full, restoring the Amazon can - and has to - also be profitable.
Currently, the Seed Center has a collection of 61 species and monitors around 15,000 trees.
The reproduction and germination processes of these have only generated 5% mortality in the seedlings that are subsequently planted.
This project will be scaled thanks to a generous investment from the IDB Lab, of $700,000.
Another non-governmental organization, Acumen, is currently considering investing in this initiative.
“What we do has a multiplier effect because the ecosystem that exists today, as it is much richer, brings dozens of dispersers [birds, bats...] that take the seeds to other corners,” says Julio Andrés Rozo, co-founder of Amazonía Emprende.
“We use the science and experience we have acquired.
And it works, that's why we want to spread it with other neighbors or farmers.
This is not about competition.
By restoring we all win.”
“The cake is so big that there is something for everyone”
The new financing also opens new scenarios.
Hernández would like to start paying for the seeds, as he mentioned in the workshop, to increase the collection and involve more people in the process.
In addition, they would like to scale the laboratory, the network of nurseries and design a sales and marketing model to monetize all that material.
“All the science we generate will be public.
The cake is so big that there is something for everyone,” he says.
Caimo seed in the forest of the Amazonía Emprende farm.
NATHALIA ANGARITA
Although he has been climbing the terrain with the other species recognizers for years, Hernández never ceases to be surprised.
She gets excited like a child when she finds seeds chewed by animals or when she finds seedlings becoming firmer in the ground.
To each question, Gómez responds like a walking encyclopedia: “This black phone has no seeds but it is very valuable;
The shell of the rose rib was used to cure malaria;
black smoke is at risk, we have to take good care of it..."
Hernández mentally writes down each of the new details.
“When you see seedlings like these, you no longer step on the ground in the same way, because you know that the forest is growing.
If society had these eyes, it would also look at the Amazon differently,” she says.
“Protecting it will be important not only to maintain this enormous carbon sink;
but to take care of this food and medicine bank about which we still know very little.”