Andrea Aromatici and Daniela ScacabarozziCompanions in life too, they arrived for the first time in Australia In 2012 for a honeymoon. From that moment on they fell in love with what they call “the wonderful land” and never left. An environmental teacher, she is a biologist and researcher at the university, studying native orchids and their pollination strategy.
In Australia there are about 1700 species of orchids, Brilliant species that offer an exceptional field of study for research »explained by Andrea and Daniela.
“The other reason we stayed in Australia was the Aboriginals, millennials who have not lost their true bond with Mother Earth. Our friends Nina and Bill have taught us and given us so much, and we are so grateful for that. Their culture has been passed down orally for 60,000 years, as To receive a small portion of this enormous legacy in custody is a very precious gift,” they explain.
About 5 years ago, Andrea and Daniela founded a working group called “Earth to be” (www.earthtobe.com ), “through which we develop environmental projects with the aim of protecting the planet. These projects are both scientific and popular technology, like the documentary we contributed to protecting a specific type of orchid. Vision be the earth It is to adopt different skills and competencies in ecology and education to create projects, but also to work in an existential way with people, or on the basis of being, and make a difference in the world.”
“Human space is the fertile ground for conducting any project with a broad vision that has a huge impact in the world – Andrea and Daniela continued – Our ultimate goal is to improve the quality of life with responsibility, sustainability, care and commitment. be the earth It works through project development because it represents an effective way to generate practical and tangible actions that have a direct impact on daily life.”
The film project In Search of the Queen of Sheba Orchid, in which Andrea and Daniela collaborated, was born in 2017 while Daniela was doing her PhD at Curtin University, Perth Kings Park and the Botanical Garden on Orchids. The manager called her Daryl Sapphire By botanist Stig Dallstrom To participate in the filming of the documentary about the Australian orchids they were going to make.
“This was my field of work and research, I immediately decided to accept the challenge and joined the film caravan. Daryl and Stig have traveled the world in a series known as “The Wild Orchid Man” where protagonist Stig searches for unusual orchids that are often rare in remote places. To shoot their documentaries, they were in the Amazon, USA, Africa and Sweden – explains Daniela – and so in 2017 they decided to come to Australia as well, which is a hot spot Biodiversity Recognized all over the world for the richness of its flora, including orchids. They were particularly excited to find one type of orchid in particular, known as the Queen of Sheba, the flower of Australia famous for its overwhelming but unfortunately endangered local beauty. The time Daryl and Stig first arrived in Australia didn’t quite match the flowering of this rare orchid, so we couldn’t photograph his discovery. So they decided to come back in 2019 in time for the blooms and we finally found it shining in the Australian bush in all its grace.”
When the documentary was released in January 2021, Andrea and Daniela embarked on a screening tour through Western Australia. “We have made ten dates in festivals, municipalities, public libraries, universities and orchid lovers’ associations. This tour showed us how popular the documentary is in Australia, being a huge hit with many evenings selling out. Totally unexpected overall response. During the performances, a strong interaction is created with very active people and groups of orchid lovers in order to protect and preserve these wonderful but at the same time very sensitive plants.”
documentary”Look for the orchid, the Queen of ShebaDirector Stig Dalstrom and Darryl Saffer, having won seven international awards (Singapore, Sweden, UK and USA), was also selected last May at the Hollywood Golden Awards as the Gold Award winner for Feature Documentary.
“The documentary film – the addition of Andrea and Daniela – is a valid educational tool that aims to raise awareness among the public for the protection and care of native orchids. We do our best to spread that awareness and care like wildfire, and that’s what we want to achieve, and it’s the focus of our team. Fortunately, the issue of protecting the environment and conserving plant and animal species in danger of disappearing is well received in Australia. Various groups and associations are making their voices heard for this cause. We hope that this documentary has given more power to these voices who are already in the region.”
Andrea and Daniela have collaborated on other similar projects. “One of our favorite studies was in Peru, in the Amazon rainforest, where we studied the pollination strategy of native vanilla species. Our goal was to find out which insect was involved in this pollination process. We also carried out another large project in the Amazon related to the study of native cacao, with what This has implications for protecting the rights of the farmers who grow it.”
The release of the documentary film on orchids funded a study of the pollination strategy for the Queen of Sheba orchids (Variety thelimeter complex species) in southwestern Australia. “This is the next adventure and research that awaits us to deepen the ecology of the complex’s species, so as to introduce new elements for the protection and conservation of rare and endangered species of plants such as the regina orchid.”
“Committing ourselves to protecting biodiversity is part of our vision for life – conclude Andrea and Daniela – we believe that protecting a small ring of the ecosystem helps greatly in maintaining the health of the ecosystem as a whole. Orchids have different ecological relationships with other surrounding life forms (fungi, pollinators, plants). others), so focusing conservation efforts even on one species means acting indirectly and for the benefit of the entire ecosystem.”
Here is the trailer for the documentary
Terra Nova
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