Orchids for Peace

Andes, South America

June 23, 2026

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2–3 minutes

Location: Antioquia, Caldas, and Caquetá, Colombia
Elevation: 1,200–3,000 meters

🌎 Overview

Year Founded: 2024
Approximate Area: Their conservation work spans several cloud-forest and Andes–Amazon corridors across Colombia.
Altitude: 1,740 – 1,900 m (5,700–6,200 ft.)

The Orchids for Peace Foundation is a Colombian conservation organization protecting orchids and their ecosystems across the northern Andes. It links rigorous scientific research, restoration, seed banking, and propagation with traditional ecological knowledge and community-led conservation. Through legal orchid cultivation and ecotourism, it supports women-led rural livelihoods while promoting native orchids as symbols of biodiversity, sustainable development, post-conflict healing, and reconciliation.

🌸 Collections & Biodiversity

• OFP runs a native-orchid propagation program rather than maintaining a fixed collection.
• At Riosucio, they specialize in Lepanthes.
• Through Dr. Tatiana Arias’s role as Research Associate at Marie Selby Botanical Gardens (Florida, USA), they propagate Epidendrum floridanum and Sacoila paludicola in vitro.
• They have collaborated with the Cartagena Botanical Garden to cultivate species native to the Colombian Caribbean, and with Colomborquídeas.

• Approximate number of specimens in the wild: Tens of thousands across orchid-rich corridors.

🧭 Visiting Information

• Access: By appointment only.
• Days: By arrangement; visits are scheduled as guided research expeditions and botanical immersions.
• Hours: Daylight field hours; visits run in a multi-day, guided-expedition format.

🏡 Facilities & Amenities

• Native-orchid nursery and tissue-culture lab for in vitro propagation
• Field research and demographic monitoring
• Guided expedition logistics through partner operators

🔬 Projects & Research

OFP conducts long-term research on threatened orchids, floristic diversity, seed banking, and in vitro propagation.

Its work combines traditional ecological knowledge with genomics and focuses on Neotropical Pleurothallidinae, especially Dracula, Lepanthes, and Pleurothallis.

Programs involve students, local communities, and women conservation leaders.

⚠️ Challenges

• Forest fragmentation and habitat loss in surrounding lands
• Illegal orchid collection and wildlife poaching
• Securing sustained funding for long-term monitoring and land protection

🌱 Future

• Expanding the protected area through land acquisition (with Rainforest Trust and Orchid Conservation Alliance)
• Scaling native-orchid propagation to undercut illegal harvest
• Growing community-led, women-centered ecotourism and stewardship programs
• Developing interpretive trails and bilingual educational resources
• Completing IUCN Red List assessments for priority species

“Every orchid we protect here is a thread connecting a fragile ecosystem to the community that cares for it. In these mountains, conservation and peace grow side by side.”

– Dr. Tatiana Arias, CEO & Scientific Director