For centuries we said flora and fauna and believed we had named all of life. We were missing a word. We were missing a kingdom.

Fungi are not plants. They do not photosynthesize, do not put down roots, are not green. They are Fungi: a kingdom of their own, as ancient and as essential as the other two. Without them there would be no forest — no seed thrives without the mycorrhizal network that feeds it — no fertile soil, no bread, no wine, no cheese, no medicine. They hold up the world from below, and almost no one looks at them.

That blindness has consequences. Fungi make up barely 0.8% of global conservation priorities. Entire forests are felled without ever counting the fungal species that die along with them, because they appear in no law. Chile was the first country in the world to recognize them in its environmental legislation; today an international commitment is moving forward for others to do the same, heading toward the next UN Biodiversity Conference, in Armenia, in 2026. Mexico — one of the most fungally diverse countries on the planet, cradle of a millennia-old ethnomycology — still remains silent.

That is why we adopt the third word: Funga. Alongside fauna and flora, funga. To name is the first act of protection. When you say animals and plants, say fungi too. When someone speaks of life and forgets a kingdom, remind them.

From San Miguel de Allende, Simbiosis declares itself the voice of Funga in Spanish. We do not ask you to love fungi. We ask you to see them.

Before: the Simbiosis Manifesto — who we are, and why alliance is our way of being in the world.