Ethnobotanist, independent researcher, and advocate for indigenous knowledge systems and cultural preservation.
Biography
Inki is an ethnobotanist, traveller, and independent researcher whose work has been shaped through years of lived experience alongside indigenous communities throughout the world. His travels and studies have taken him across India, Thailand, French Polynesia, the Cook Islands, Niue, Tonga, Fiji, Samoa, New Caledonia, the United States, Ecuador, Peru, and Gabon—each culture offering its own distinct understanding of humanity’s relationship with the natural world.
His fascination with ethnobotany began in early adulthood through a growing curiosity about the relationship between plants, chemistry, ritual, medicine, and culture. Influenced by close friendships with First Nations peoples from North America, alongside years of independent study, he became increasingly drawn toward traditional ecological knowledge and indigenous systems of understanding.
This path eventually led him to study Indigenous Development at the University of Otago, where he explored the intersections between cultural preservation, indigenous worldviews, and environmental stewardship.
Since 2015, Inki has focused much of his time in remote villages throughout the Amazon Jungle and Andes Mountains, living with indigenous families and learning directly through immersion in language, ceremony, subsistence practices, music, and everyday life. These ongoing experiences have profoundly shaped both his worldview and creative work.
His interests centre around ethnobotany, traditional medicine, cultural resilience, folk traditions, and humanity’s enduring relationship with place. Through both advocacy and storytelling, he continues to support the preservation of indigenous cultures and the ecosystems they call home—many of which face increasing pressure from industrialisation, extractive industries, deforestation, and rapid cultural homogenisation. For Inki, ethnobotany is not simply the study of plants--it is the study of relationship: between people, land, memory, and meaning.
His fascination with ethnobotany began in early adulthood through a growing curiosity about the relationship between plants, chemistry, ritual, medicine, and culture. Influenced by close friendships with First Nations peoples from North America, alongside years of independent study, he became increasingly drawn toward traditional ecological knowledge and indigenous systems of understanding.
This path eventually led him to study Indigenous Development at the University of Otago, where he explored the intersections between cultural preservation, indigenous worldviews, and environmental stewardship.
Since 2015, Inki has focused much of his time in remote villages throughout the Amazon Jungle and Andes Mountains, living with indigenous families and learning directly through immersion in language, ceremony, subsistence practices, music, and everyday life. These ongoing experiences have profoundly shaped both his worldview and creative work.
His interests centre around ethnobotany, traditional medicine, cultural resilience, folk traditions, and humanity’s enduring relationship with place. Through both advocacy and storytelling, he continues to support the preservation of indigenous cultures and the ecosystems they call home—many of which face increasing pressure from industrialisation, extractive industries, deforestation, and rapid cultural homogenisation. For Inki, ethnobotany is not simply the study of plants--it is the study of relationship: between people, land, memory, and meaning.