As a child, I saw python deities draped from branches, heard the stories of my ancestors who hid from European slavers among roots, and drank the medicinal teas and wild fruits gathered by my mother. But I grew up seeing these forests recede, and the health of both nature and people has suffered. Where I live, on the southern Ouemé plateau, just one third of the sacred forests recorded in 1980 remain. As a man, and as the Chief of my people, it has become my life’s mission to restore us all – our forests and ourselves.