Bonplandia among the 500 Best of Premios Verdes 2026
Pijao's science laboratory was selected among the 500 best environmental projects in Ibero-America — a recognition of the botanical work of the municipality's children.
News that fills us with pride: Bonplandia was selected among the 500 Best projects by Premios Verdes, the platform that every year recognises the most outstanding environmental initiatives in Ibero-America.
The project’s profile can be seen in the official 500 Best gallery.
What makes us happiest about this recognition is who it recognises: the children of Pijao’s rural schools who, from the Bonplandia Laboratory, are the authors of 956 botanical records of their own territory (as of May 2026). Community science in the most literal sense: made in the municipality, about the municipality’s plants, by its youngest inhabitants.
This path had already taken us to the Premios Verdes final in Cuenca, Ecuador. Being among the 500 Best now confirms the conviction the laboratory was born with: “knowledge is born of patient observation, of wonder at life, and of the desire to understand nature as it expresses itself in every leaf, in every root.”
Our thanks to the four University of Quindío biologists who run the laboratory, to the La Mariela and Instituto Pijao schools, to doña Ligia — guardian of El Patio — and to Lotus Children’s Foundation, our parent foundation and our donor, who believed in a science laboratory on the mountain when it was barely an idea.