This archive report was first published on 27 December 2019.
Colombia is home to an incredible range of fauna and flora, second only to Brazil. Botanist Julio Betancur has dedicated his life to documenting this biodiversity, taking considerable risks to collect plant cuttings.
For the last 30 years, Betancur has ventured into jungle territory infested with drug traffickers and armed gangs, armed only with a notebook and gardening shears. He has contributed four percent of the 600,000 samples in the University of Colombia's herbarium.
There have been close calls, including a 'slightly violent' encounter with a group of drug runners. Fortunately, the drug traffickers accepted their explanations and left them alone.
On another occasion, local peasants freed them from a minefield. Betancur credits the communities for their bravery, saying 'If it hadn't been for them, we wouldn't be here telling the story.'
Deforestation, mainly from livestock farming but also illegal mining and coca plantations, has done untold damage to Colombia's jungles. Almost five percent of the 169,000 hectares of illegal coca plantations are in protected areas.
Illicit gold mining, using techniques that are harmful to the environment, cover 98,000 hectares - an area greater than Berlin. Since 2010, more than a million hectares of Colombian jungle have been cut down, according to an official report.
Despite the dangers, Betancur continues his work, collecting plant samples and documenting the country's biodiversity. He compares the herbarium to the Great Library of Alexandria in Egypt, one of the most significant libraries of the ancient world.
