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Gabrielle: Describe your research. What lessons
has it taught you?
Mark (Gabrielle's dad): An ethnobotanist lives
with a different culture of people to learn how they use plants in their
lives. I want to learn, but I also want to help conserve their environments.
Iāve been working with the forest peoples of the Amazon since the late
1970s.
The most important lesson Iāve learned is how much we
still have to learn about nature! And the best teachers--who know much
more than we do--are the Indians themselves.
Gabrielle: How did you first become interested
in ethnobotany?
Mark: I took a class in college about medicinal
plants, or plants that cure or heal. Until then, I hadnāt realized how
much of our medicine comes from nature! And my teacher had lived in the
Amazon with the Indians for 15 years. I wanted to follow in his footsteps
...
Gabrielle: What has surprised you about your research?
Mark: I have been surprised about how local peoples
can successfully treat all sorts of diseases using local plants. Sometimes
they even use insects as medicines! I work with one medicine man, called
a shaman, who lets ants bite him on the arms. He says itās a great treatment
for arthritis, a problem with aching joints.
Gabrielle: What is your favorite tree?
Mark: My absolute favorite is the ćWee-deeä tree.
It has a blood-red sap, which is used to treat skin infections, dandruff,
wounds ... everything, just about. It is a beautiful tree: very tall with
a straight trunk or bole and beautiful yellow flowers.
Gabrielle: What can you say about peopleās relationships
with plants?
Mark: People depend on plants for EVERYTHING:
for food like fruits, for shelter to make houses, for weapons to make bows
and arrows, for medicines, and for lots more.
Gabrielle: How did you come about writing a book
for children about your research?
Mark: Kids are the best environmentalists! They
are energetic and curious; and they're dreamers! I wanted kids to know
more about not just rain forests, but the people and plants that live there.
Thatās why I wrote The Shamanās Apprentice with author and illustrator
Lynne Cherry--to say what I think is the most important environmental issue
of all: saving the tropical rain forest!
Gabrielle: Do kids use plants differently than
grown-ups do?
Mark: In the Amazon, all kids play with toys made
from plants. They have toy bows and arrows, necklaces made from seeds,
and dolls made from cornhusks.
Gabrielle: Are kids in the Amazon different than
children here?
Mark: There are schools now in many Indian villages.
But kids in the forest spend less time in schools. They spend more time
with their parents, usually learning from them in the forest. Jealous?
Gabrielle: Whatās the yuckiest plant you ever tasted?
Mark: Cassava beer! Women of the tribe make the
beer by chewing the cassava root and spitting it in a pot. Chemicals in
their saliva turn the stuff into a kind of beer that smells like spit-up.
Even though the Indians love it, I think it is, without a doubt, the grossest
thing on the planet!
Gabrielle: Yummiest?
Mark: The fruit of the ćassaiä (pronounced as-sah-ah-yee)
palm is mixed with water and sugar in the Brazilian Amazon. It is purple
and tastes better than chocolate!
Ethnobotany is a science of understanding all
the ways plants and people interact. Some ethnobotanists study plant medicines;
some are more interested in farming. There are ethnobotanists who train
mostly as botanists, and others who train mostly in the study of cultures.
But no matter the exact topic of study, you need to know about plants.
You also need something that is hard to teach. You have to like talking
to people.-- Mark Plotkin
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| My Dad the Ethnobotanist | Amazing Amazon Kids | Totem Poles | Create a Totem Pole | Dragonfly Home Page |
Photos courtsey of Rain-Tree and Mark Plotkin.
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