An Indigenous-led model for ecological restoration, traditional medicine, and intergenerational knowledge renewal — restoring degraded rainforest landscapes through community gardens that regenerate ecosystems, revitalise ancestral knowledge, and strengthen community health across the Amazon.
IPBES identifies the loss of biocultural diversity as a major driver of ecosystem degradation. The World Health Organization estimates that roughly 80% of the global population relies, in part, on traditional medicine.
Launched in 2025, Medicinal Gardens for Biocultural Regeneration responds to a dual crisis — ecological degradation and the loss of ancestral plant knowledge. Restoration here is ecological, cultural, and educational at once: the programme restores both landscapes and memory.
It is not just a tree; it is life, medicine, and ancestral knowledge.
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Six connected actions — reforestation, documentation, research, monitoring, capacity building and biocultural heritage — working as one restoration model grounded in Indigenous knowledge.
Restoring degraded areas through the planting of native medicinal flora that supports human and animal health, strengthens pollinator networks, improves soil quality, water retention, and microclimates, and contributes to early carbon capture.
Together with Indigenous elders and youth, we are developing the first Indigenous-led multicultural encyclopedia documenting medicinal plants and traditional uses. This knowledge will be safeguarded through biocultural protocols and environmental policies.
With Dr Elodie Freymann and partners, we are investigating how wildlife interact with medicinal plants and forest resources to better understand animal self-medication behaviours and the ecological relationships between biodiversity and traditional medicine.
Monitoring biodiversity recovery, vegetation growth, and early-stage carbon capture within medicinal gardens to better understand their ecological and climatic impacts over time.
Providing training and technical support for local communities in medicinal garden restoration and biocultural stewardship, while fostering knowledge exchange across communities and partners.
Supporting artistic expression, storytelling, and cultural documentation connected to medicinal plants, biodiversity, and ancestral knowledge to strengthen biocultural heritage and intergenerational knowledge transfer.
Each garden features key medicinal plants native to the surrounding Amazonian landscape and safeguarded through generations of Indigenous knowledge and traditional practice. Species vary across territories, and include plants such as sangre de grado, camu camu, achiote, barbasco, ayahuasca, and mucura, as well as species that remain undocumented in Western science — each carrying deep ecological, cultural, and healing significance.
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In the Kukama tradition, medicinal plants were cultivated with deep respect. They were not regarded merely as natural resources, but as living beings endowed with spirit and wisdom.
— Avita Taricuarima · Biologist, Translator and Ecotourism Guide
We are committed to restoring the Amazon Rainforest to strengthen the connection between people and their natural environment.
— Rosa Vásquez Espinoza, Ph.D. · Founder and Executive Director
Next: Indigenous-led biodiversity monitoring, community research pathways, intercultural exchange, and a multilingual medicinal-plant encyclopedia in Kukama, Shipibo and Ashaninka — the Amazon’s first pharmacopeia in Indigenous languages. The work contributes to the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
Gardens established in Loreto, Ucayali, Junín and Cuzco supported by Studio BlueGreen and private philanthropy.