The project
WANE. Vanishing. That's what's happening to the natural world. And not because of an evil spell, but because of our activities and the unsustainable footprint we have on the Planet. At the expense is biodiversity, that is, millions of animal and plant species, fungi and microbes with which we share the Earth... But also cultures, languages and traditions.
Aware that we have the power to change things and to make people aware of what is happening to the Planet, on July 15th 2022 we left for a year-long expedition.
On board of aVANscoperta, a van equipped to work as a veichle, a home and an office, we are travelling along the Panamericana to discover how the environment has been modified by man, how nature is reacting and who are the heroes who, day after day, are fighting to safeguard its existence.
Every day we collect stories and testimonies, we immerse ourselves in the culture of the countries we are exploring, and we are the voice of all those species trying to survive and adapt to an unprecedented crisis.
We have been told that the world was created by man. A presumption unsupported by facts.
John Muir
Our Urgency
In a historical moment characterized by a 360° ecological crisis, we have the responsibility to initiate a change.
WANE - We Are Nature Expedition is our active contribution to what we hope will be a revolution in our actions and in the way we look at nature.
For millennia we have considered ourselves not a species among species but the only one able to claim our place at the top of the pyramid. Convinced of being endowed with a superior intelligence, we thought we could live outside the laws of nature without remembering that we are part of it and that even the mushrooms, much older than us, have something to teach us: that is, that we depend on the Earth and from it we draw all the resources necessary for our survival.
For this reason, WANE - We Are Nature Expedition is more than field research.
It is our active contribution to what we hope will be a revolution in our actions and in our way of looking at nature.
But it's also a warning to us and to others:
if you really want to change things, first of all you have to see them with your own eyes, try to understand them and then tell about them with all the strength and empathy of which you are capable.
That's why joining this conversation represents a unique opportunity both to acquire new knowledge and to build consensus around an evidence that is less and less ignorable:
WE ARE NATURE
The salvation of the world is in the wilderness.
Henry David Thoreau
The heroes of this journey...
No, it is not us
The heroes of our journey are those we meet along the way, whatever species they may be. Their stories and commitment help us understand what we are losing and what is risking to disappear if we don't change our relationship with the natural world. They are professionals and innovators, fighters, inspirers and creators of strategies and best practices for preserving and protecting the environment.
They are the First Nations Indians and the native tribes of South America, repositories of precious traditional knowledge, who fight to preserve their land and their right to maintain and strengthen their spiritual relationship with nature.
Our heroes are the animal and plant species we will meet and whose stories and battle for survival we will tell. Like the Monarch Butterfly, protagonist of one of the longest migrations in the world, which could become extinct in the next 50 years due to climate change, pesticides, and deforestation in Michoacán (Mexico).
They are Romeo and Juliet, the last pair of Sehuencas Water Frogs, who live in the Alcide d'Orbigny Museum of Natural History in Cochabamba, Bolivia, and their janitors. They are sharks, whales, mushrooms, trees, wolves, bears, macaws, caribou.... And all those who depend on these species and with whom they have an ancestral bond that we Westerners have forgotten.
Thabo
