Molly Helfend is an investigative journalist, ethnobotanist, ecopsychologist, and storyteller.
Her work moves across ecology, indigenous knowledge, psychedelics, and human connection, and follows the stories where they meet.
She started young. At 18 she interned with Greenpeace in San Francisco and helped build a campaign against oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The campaign reached the Obama administration. Around the same time she worked with Rainforest Action Network on the campaign against palm oil destruction in the Sumatran rainforest. She also helped organize the 2013 protest of the Keystone XL pipeline across the Golden Gate Bridge, which drew thousands of people and international press.
That early work set the pattern. Molly goes where plants, people, and power meet, and she reports back.
She has bylines in Vice News Tonight, Vogue, BBC Wildlife, and Atmos.
The reporting is grounded in research. She holds a master of science in ethnobotany from the University of Kent, where she studied how Māori in the Waikato region relate to plants through kaitiakitanga. She trained in environmental studies at the University of Vermont and in ecopsychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute. She is also a Master Clinical Herbalist.
She is the creator, producer and host of The Wild Remedy, a documentary series on ecopsychology and how reconnecting with wild nature can heal both people and the places they live. The pilot was filmed in New Zealand.
Her work is driven by the question: What happens to us when we lose our relationship to the wild world, and who gets to decide what that world is worth?
Education
Spoonful Herbals 2016 - Certificate in Herbal Medicine
University of Vermont 2016 - Bachelors of Science in Environmental Studies
University of Kent 2018 - Masters of Science in Ethnobotany
University of Oxford 2022 - GESA Cohort Member
Pacifica Graduate Institute 2024 - Advanced Graduate Training Certificiate in Ecopsychology
Languages
English - Fluent
Spanish - Intermediate
Portuguese - Pre-intermediate
Te Reo - Beginner
Interviews
The Alchemist’s Kitchen - Interview about work and relationship to mushrooms.
Passion Passport- Interview about ethnobotany research work in New Zealand and conservation career goals.
Roots and Grains - Interview about health career and environmental sustainability.
Avasol - Multiple interviews about career, ethnobotany, environmental activism and work with sustainable brands.
Podcasts
Soundfood - Episode 30 // FLORA, FAUNA & FOREST: Communing with Plants and the Restorative Powers of the Earth with Molly Helfend
Torey’s Studio - Episode 10 // Letting Desire Lead Your Life with Molly Helfend