Applied Ethnobotany and Global Health and Wellness

Indigenous peoples worldwide have long lived in harmony with nature. This integral relationship with our planet spawned deep reverence and understanding of our natural world. Traditional healers and their age-old knowledge hold some of the earth’s countless secrets for our health and wellness. These secrets, along with our rainforests and planetary ecological integrity, are disappearing.

What IS Applied Ethnobotany?

Historically, ethnobotany has been the study of the relationship between plants and people. We at Earth Healers, along with our indigenous partners, are developing a new field: that of applied ethnobotany. Deep healing traditions have long helped us maintain personal health and wellness, and they can still help today. We can learn of holistic health and wellness options, how to care for and nurture our world, and ways to tether economic benefits to our world’s rainforests and natural places through traditional healers and the healing plants they utilize. After all, there is no health without environmental health. Human wellness is inextricably linked to the environment in ways traditional cultures have understood for generations.

Why Is This Bringing Hope To A Dire Situation?

"Rainforests are being destroyed at a staggering rate. According to the National Academy of Science, at least 50 million acres a year are lost, an area the size of England, Wales and Scotland combined. All the primary rainforests in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Haiti have been destroyed already. The Ivory Coast rainforests have been almost completely logged. The Philippines lost 55% of its forest between 1960 and 1985; Thailand lost 45% of its forest between 1961 and 1985" (Rainforest Action Network).

"The biodiversity of the tropical rainforest is so immense that less than one percent of its millions of species have been studied by scientists for active constituents and their possible uses for man. When an acre of tropical rainforest is lost, the impact to the number of plant, animal and insect species lost and their possible uses is staggering. Scientific experts estimate that we are losing over 137 species of plants, animals and insects every single day because of rainforest deforestation" (Rainforest Action Network).

We at Earth Healers take this catastrophic and ongoing occurrence very seriously, not only in rainforest regions, but other pristine natural places as well. Our Earth Mother can't repair herself at the rate she is being destroyed. It is essential that we consider the fact that "developing countries wish to exploit their land and biological resources in order to increase national food, timber, and export crop production” (Wood, 115), and that "conservation insensitive to local needs has led to a situation where the majority of people view wildlife conservation as alien, hypocritical, and as favoring foreigners" (Wood, 115). Earth Healers is acutely aware of this need, and sees a way to minimize, and hopefully stop, this destruction by creating a better way to harness the value of the majestic areas which house these indescribable amounts of species diversity.

"The conservation of intact ecosystems requires that markets be extended to increase economic benefits derived from the standing forest to the point where they out compete alternative, destructive land uses” (Crook and Clapp, 131). The best way to do this is to bring an economic benefit not available in other areas, and take this with us as we bridge the gap to sustainable development. The inhabitants of this land do, in fact, need to harness its value to live, and have done so sustainably through indigenous methods for millennia. We are a thriving example that the relatively modern ideals of profitable conservation of both biodiversity and heritage are feasible.

How is Indigenous Knowledge Changing the Way We Heal AND Conserve?

By turning back to the very thing we are trying to protect and using the learned eye of the local inhabitants in an unprecedented series of true partnerships (rather than isolated charitable payouts or unfairly low 'profits' from unsafe exploits), we can use the healing powers of local flora from the forests to guide us to sustainable preservation of both nature and humankind.

One-fourth of the medicines available today are botanically derived. Seventy percent of the plants identified by the National Cancer Institute as useful in cancer treatment are found only in the rainforest. Drugs used to treat leukemia and other cancers come from rainforest plants, as do medicines for heart ailments, hypertension, arthritis and birth control. Yet less than 1% of tropical forest species have been thoroughly examined for their chemical compounds.

The dependency of man upon plants dates back to prehistoric times, and only now, in this modern world, are we neglecting perhaps many important uses for plant species by failing to appreciate the resources available to us in tropical rainforest ecosystems. Our partners study not only the relationships between plants and people, as mentioned the field known as ethnobotany, but also ways to create economically viable conservation initiatives via ethnobotany, healing plants and traditional healing. Earth Healers and associated ethnobotanists have worked in these areas for many years, and through them and our indigenous partners, we are learning about herbs with medicinal properties from healers and shamans; people who possess generations of knowledge and may hold the key to alleviating ailments from which 'modern' treatments fall short. Through their efforts, our indigenous partners can spread the knowledge that has been passed from much earlier generations. As we uncover beneficial species, during both expeditions and field study, the species are cataloged and researched to discover their benefits, again, with the help of those who have used them in harmony with the earth for years.

"Local knowledge of medicinal plants can be of both local and global importance, allowing a close targeting of research to develop new drugs…Most of the present economic value of species of tropical forest depends on cumulative indigenous knowledge gained over thousands of years of experimentation on tropical species by many millions of human inhabitants. Yet the exclusion of rural communities is now a standard feature of protected areas of conservation” (Wood, 126).

This is not the case with Earth Healers. This is why we are unique in our endeavors, and why, as we bring you the health you not only desire, but deserve, we can lead the way to a better method of ‘conservation.’ The fact that we utilize the knowledge of the cultures we protect brings a distinctive quality to our work and our products. In order to ensure the correct types, harvest methods, and usage of species for healing, "plants must be selected individually which is impossible for small plants and at least costly in the case of large plants” (Kelpinger, et al., 31) when working in a modern fashion. Not so with the methods we are learning from our shaman and healer partners, who maintain medicinal gardens to propagate the plants used for health.

Proven Methods

An example of the benefits of this method lies in a 25-year study on U. tomentosa, headed by Klaus Keplinger. "The standardization of extracts and products thereof must take into account that at least two chemotypes of this plant exist. They are distinguished by the Ashaninka priests as demonstrated by a ‘sancoshi’-guided harvest [a type of ceremony prior to the harvest, a method we too employ] which yielded exclusively pentacyclic alkaloid-type plants. It still remains a secret how this selectivity was achieved” (Kelpinger, et al., 31). This means that the ceremonial harvest led by priests yielded the beneficial plants used in the study. Earth Healers’ partners include both traditional healers and bushmasters, assuring not only the correct herbals are used, but also grown, harvest, and prepared most effectively (according to tradition). Without these parts of the equation, the potency of the plant is diminished. We believe that there is an ever so important synergistic aspect of all of the phytochemical constituents and their energetic counterparts (plant spirits themselves), and our indigenous processes retain this spirit and pass the benefit onto you. There is no substitute for the knowledge our healing partners possess, and they, along with their supporting communities, can and should reap economic stability for this.

Will It Work?

We can be assured of the financial benefits of community-based conservation via traditional healing because the market for traditional healing and herbals exists in several facets internationally and is expanding very quickly. The economic potential of medicinal plants alone has been clearly illustrated through the continued development of revenue-generating botanically based pharmaceuticals. However, to date, pharmaceutical use of plants has been unpromising for assisting local people and conservation of biodiversity and culture since either the benefits never materialized or unsustainable industrial use of plants has outstripped supply. "The success of market-oriented conservation requires that sustainable extraction of useful organisms over the long term yields more profit than destructive activities” (Crook and Clapp, 131). This is particularly sad when one considers the economic possibilities for conservation based on the fact that twenty-five percent of all prescription drugs are derived from plant sources, and, of these, most were discovered because of their prior use by traditional healers. In 2000, the world market for herbal medicines based on traditional healing knowledge was estimated to be $60 billion (World Health Organization). With the aforementioned one-fourth of the medicines available today owing their existence to plants, and one-quarter of our modern day medical drugs coming from less than one percent of our rainforests that have been evaluated, shows evidence that there is much promise in developing an economic impetus for conservation. There is great potential in what is not known. However, better models for tethering the economic benefits regionally to people and planet are needed.

By studying with the healers and shamans and exploring the herbal diversity in the earth’s natural places, we at Earth Healers not only provide our supporters with the best herbal treatments available, but we also provide indigenous peoples with respectable and economically viable alternatives to destroying their native habitats. Using the knowledge of the local culture and the sustainable farming techniques of the area, we can help villages live with pride as they earn money for basic needs and care for our Earth Mother.

This is what sets us apart. Our main differentiating feature is that we generate fresh revenue for the continued preservation of our world’s natural places (e.g., rainforests) and their deep cultural traditions with our traditionally prepared herbal products (of sound purity and potency and phytoenergetically intact) and healing retreats. We tether economic dividends to the living rainforest as we demonstrate economically viable conservation of both culture and biodiversity. But the key here is that we are doctors and trained ethnobotanists with the respect and full cooperation and involvement of the indigenous populations in the areas from which our products come. We have lived and worked in these regions and care about the inhabitants’ cultural preservation, as well as seeing the practical and intrinsic value of maintaining nature’s pristine places. Through our work, we are giving indigenous peoples, who have lived sustainably in their native areas for generations, a market for their essential expertise in order to maintain their present lifestyle in harmony with nature. Without these alternatives, native cultures have no choice but to exploit their homelands in order to survive.

Learning From Indigenous Cultures

"The loss of forest brings with it the loss of indigenous cultures and their plant knowledge which has been acquired over thousands of years of living with nature” (Prance).

Indigenous knowledge of individual species is translated into the cultural ability to exploit and even manage ecosystems for greater productivity. Indigenous management can increase the economic value of ecosystems by encouraging useful plants and animals and enhancing ecosystem productivity. Many forest ecosystems have been managed productively by rural communities for long periods of time” (Wood, 127).

We believe the indigenous knowledge should not be ignored by an increasingly artificial world. The loss of the knowledge of healing botanicals, sustainable farming techniques, and a myriad of other cultural treasures unique to these regions should be prevented. We believe our Earth Mother possesses deep healing capacities waiting to be discovered. Our medical doctor, ethnobotanist, and traditional healer partners are working in harmony to harness healing forces to bring our partners much-needed economic security and to help you live as healthfully as possible.

In summation, as the land is being destroyed, so too are the possible cures and potential revenue for preservation. As our partners work together in harmony, our products and services are creating not a roadway, but an earthen path to lightly tread upon as we search for harmonious and sustainable coexistence with our natural world!

REFERENCES:

Crook, C., & Clapp, R. (1998). Is market-oriented forest conservation a contradiction in terms? Environmental conservation, 25, 131-145.

Keplinger, K., Laus, G., Wurm, M, Dierich, M., & Teppner, H. (1999). Uncaria tomentosa (willd.) DC-ethnomedicinal use and new pharmacological, toxicological and botanical results. Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 64, 23-34.

Pearce, D. (2001). The economic value of forest ecosystems. Ecosystem health, 7, 284-296.

Prance, Ghillean T. (1991). What is ethnobotany today? Journal of ethnopharmacology. 32, 209-216.

Rainforest Action Network. (2004). Rainforest Action Network's About Rainforests: by the numbers. Retrieved 3/23/04 from http://www.ran.org/info_center/about_rainforests.html

Raintree Nutrition, Inc. (2004). Rainforest Facts. Retrieved 3/23/04 from http://www.rain-tree.com/facts.htm

Wood, D. (1995). Conserved to death: are tropical forests being over-protected from people? Land use policy, 12, 115-135.

World Health Organization (2002). WHO Traditional Medicine Strategy 2002-2005. Geneva, Switzerland (WHO/EDM/TRM/2002.1).

United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (2000). Systems and National Experiences for Protecting Traditional Knowledge, Innovations and Practices. Background Note by the UNCTAD Secretariat, Geneva, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 2000 (TD/B/COM.1/EM.13/2).

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[Annette Tinker]

Hi Dr Pesek, what an enlightening and informative blog. I am a student in your HSC course at CSU,fall 2009-and I appreciate your studies and knowledge concerning herbal medicine and traditions. I feel the Americas' would be a better place had we followed the traditions of Native American peoples and the world a better place if the rainforest were still protected. I agree with the comment you made- "no health without environmental health. Human wellness is inextricably linked to the environment in ways traditional cultures have understood for generations.." I have spent time in Alaska and Costa Rica and to see the waterways and rain forests destroyed instead of being utilized for the vast resources that could ultimately save humankind