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Molly Helfend is a journalist, storyteller, explorer, ethnobotanist, and ecopsychologist working on field-based investigative and documentary projects across the globe. Currently based in Aotearoa, she’s working on a piece for National Geographic and preparing to join the Great Spine of Africa expedition. Her work explores land, culture, and medicine through a raw, embodied lens. Her work has been featured in Vice News Tonight, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Forbes, Cap Beauty, The Chalkboard Magazine, The Alchemist’s Kitchen, and Index Magazine.
In what ways does nature inspire or inform your work?
Nature is the work. I’m not documenting it from the outside — I’m inside it. I am shaped by it and constantly in dialogue with it. Every story I follow starts with the land pulling me somewhere. I follow the threads of how ecological systems move through nature and follow that pace.
What does it mean to you to be part of a thriving ecosystem?
A thriving ecosystem is a living network of reciprocity, decay, regeneration, and relationship. It’s rich in biodiversity — of thought, of species, of roles. Like any healthy biome — from kelp forests to alpine tundra — it depends on complex chaos and synchronistically symbiotic relationships. Being part of that means knowing your place and contributing in a way that nourishes the whole. It means being woven into something much older and wilder than you.
