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In 2019 we celebrate the 250th birthday of the scientist Alexander von Humboldt, the true “discoverer” of America according to Simon Bolívar, who knew him personally. Between 1799 and 1804, Alexander von Humboldt, accompanied by the French botanist Aimé Bonpland, traveled through the colonies of Spanish America, exploring regions that today belong to Venezuela, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru and Cuba. Back in Europe, Humboldt began publishing several books recounting his adventures in America, revealing the natural and cultural riches of South America to a curious and fascinated European public. While writing about the wonders of the tropical nature of America and the cultural wealth of its original peoples, Humboldt denounced -- like no other before him -- the horrors of slavery, the oppression of Indigenous peoples, and the injustices of the colonial system. Its importance for our time is due precisely to his ability to see the interrelations between the environment, society, politics and the economy. He was the first modern Western thinker to scientifically describe the planet as a living organism where humans, plants, animals, soils and climate interact and influence each other. The novelty of this vision at his time, when a mechanistic view of nature still prevailed, was revolutionary. For Humboldt, poetry and science were two complementary and necessary ways of understanding the world. His influence on poets, writers, and scientists was enormous. Goethe loved spending hours talking to his younger friend Humboldt. Both «Faust» and his studies of plants might not have existed as we know them today had it not been for Humboldt's influence.
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