Renata Sõukand is an Associate Professor of ethnobotany at Ca’ Foscari University in Italy, and she has recently successfully concluded an ERC Starting Grant “DiGe”. She received a PhD in Semiotics and Cultural Theory (2010) from the University of Tartu and has an educational background in pharmacy (B.Sc.) and environmental sciences (M.Sc.). Her main research interests include current and historical ethnobotany of the post-Soviet region, especially Eastern Europe, biocultural diversity, environmental history, and ecosemiotics (focusing on relations between humans and nature). Her ethnobotanical and anthropological field experience in all three Baltic States, Finland, Ukraine, Belarus, Romania, Caucasus, Balkans, Iraq, Tajikistan, Slovakia, Greece, Cyprus, and Corsica, has given her the possibility to observe, compare and reflect upon the inextricable link between sustainability and all aspects of biocultural diversity.