Nature is under attack.

Theo.

Civil war ended in 2016.

Deforestation has skyrocketed.

I'm Frank Gardner.

I'm heading into what remains of the Virgin tropical rainforest.

Four.

I traded in my wheelchair for a pack horse on, Untested to my limits.

I think I could do this.

I think this is just too dangerous.

I'm joining a crack team of plant scientists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

They're on a mission to discover and save unique plant species before they vanish forever.

In 2016 the Colombian government signed a peace deal with FARC rebels.

More than half a century.

Civil law actually slowed the pace of deforestation.

But now remote tracks of land have opened up.

Farmers, loggers and miners are scrambling for resources.

Colombia is now reportedly losing 3000 square kilometers of forest every year.

Nature's always bean something of an antidote to my job as a security correspondent.

In 2004 I was shot and partly paralyzed while on the job.

I went, and I got a certain amount of trepidation about trip itself because everybody else is walking.

I'm gonna have to do this on horseback.

Otherwise, they're not gonna be able to make it.

Mr.

Yes.

This is the first time this area is gonna be explored by botanist or scientists.

For so many years, conflict and criminality made this area inaccessible to outsiders.

There is a bit of a risk here.

You know, my legs are osteoporotic that, like honey, comb the bones, so I really can't afford to fall off and break things.

Beginning of the track is a steep descent.

The botanists hope to find new species deep inside the forest, but I'm unable to hold on with my legs.

Uh, wow.

Guys, I didn't think I could do this.

I'm gonna fall off.

I think this is just too dangerous.

I mean, it breaks my heart.

I think you're gonna have to carry on without me.

The car gonna know Harambe Hood.

Okay, well done.

OK.

I want to Knowing what we managed to find a solution to get done.

It's late because game done by mule was just too tricky.

Too dangerous.

The bottom is hope to find plants with untold potential.

One of the local guides believes he's chanced upon something extraordinary this we actually we don't know exactly what it is on quickly.

Something you Is that we are the first Brokenness collecting Syria.

What does it need to find a potentially new species like this in the remote forest?

Some of this vicious could have the properties to cure important disease for human.

So biologists and botanists, we have to try to understand us as soon as possible as quick as possible.

All this amazing biodiversity.

In the fight to save the forests, the Colombian government has extended its protection to millions of acres of land.

The Army launched Operation Artemisia in 2019 to combat illegal logging.

But in remote places, the law is hard to enforce.

Illegal loggers are still a work in these forests.

Okay with you.

Yeah, it was in the article on it.

Uh, your loss.

This fallen giant will make the loggers $300.

Scientists from Q remain hopeful of finding hidden treasures before it's too late.

Colombia today is a post conflict nation, but it faces a new battle to protect its natural resources.

The biodiversity contained in these forests could prove to be its most precious commodity of all.