Nanna Borchert, MSc Geoecology
Work allowed Nanna to discover and befriend Northern landscapes in Scandinavia and North America. The green calm of these forests and the blue vast skies made her feel at home. While doing botanical work in Southeast Alaska, a remote landscape of islands that are covered with enormous temperate rainforests, she learned immensely, not just about the ecosystem, but from the forests, the ocean, and all its inhabitants, whether two-legged, four-legged, winged, or rooted. On islands in the Pacific, she found herself in the company of far more animals other than homo sapiens. On her solo wanderings searching for specific plants, she learned to hone her senses and tune in with the forests and their inhabitants.
From indigenous colleagues, she also learned that wild animals in such healthy landscapes can be trusted and communicated with. This changed her way of seeing and being. It allowed her to lean into life, sense more, think less, and realize that communication without words is not only possible, but natural.
Later, working in a secluded valley high up in the Rocky Mountains, where no modern communications reached, she cooperated with the Aspen Institute, inviting executives into this rugged and beautiful “wild” mountain valley. Inviting visitors just to be, sense the quiet, the earth, the air, and touch the ground with their bare feet was the beginning of calm, reflective conversations around a fire, under a sky sparkling with stars.
Today, she lives in Sweden, teaching private forest owners about close-to-nature forestry and anyone interested in wild edible and medicinal plants.