WLT’s relationship with Nightwish began in 2019, when we first talked about collaborating and lead singer Floor auctioned a personal portrait from artist Lucas van de Wakker to raise money for WLT. The Nightwish-WLT partnership became official in 2020, when their generous donation allowed WLT partner Grupo Ecológico Sierra Gorda (GESG) to establish a new protected area in Mexico’s Sierra Gorda region.
This area, now officially known as the Nightwish Reserve, protects an important tract of temperate cloud forest home to threatened tree species like the Mexican White Cedar. The weasel-like Tayra is found here, as well as three wild cat species (Puma, Jaguar and Ocelot) and the Crested Guan (a Near Threatened bird). GESG hopes the Big-footed Salamander will one day become the reserve’s flagship species; this amphibian, once classified as Possibly Extinct, was rediscovered nearby in 2017.
Nightwish announced their support for WLT and GESG with the music video for Ad Astra, the final track on their latest album, HUMAN. :||: NATURE. Described by Nightwish as a “love letter to planet Earth”, the album follows on from Endless Forms Most Beautiful, the band’s eighth release, which drew inspiration from evolution, science, and the works of Charles Darwin.